


The Ángel Who Fell From Heaven

by AlejandroAsher, Ella Symphony (LaurenX)



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alex Alvarez is bi as hell and he doesn't know it yet, Alex Alvarez is bisexual, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Best Friends, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Childhood Memories, Coming Out, Dark, Dark Past, Descriptions of Blood, Discussions of violence, Domestic Violence, Elena just wants to be closer to Alex, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Heist, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Loneliness, M/M, Memories of domestic violence, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Non-Canon Relationship, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Realization, Realizing You're Queer, Repressed Memories, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Tag list will be updated, Teen Angst, Teen Crush, Teen Romance, Theft, Triggers, Violent thoughts about blood, Warnings May Change, being outed, bi! alex alvarez, discussions of blood, post-season 3, triggering content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 108,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22726963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlejandroAsher/pseuds/AlejandroAsher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurenX/pseuds/Ella%20Symphony
Summary: THE TAGS LIST WILL BE UPDATED WITH MORE TRIGGER WARNINGS AS MORE CHAPTERS ARE POSTED. This fanfic contains a lot of difficult subject matter that may be triggering to some readers with mental health problems or disorders. If you have triggers, please read at your own risk.Updates twice a month. Next update: SOMETIME THIS YEAR I SWEAR TO GOD WE LOVE YOU DON'T LEAVE USIf you asked my family how the past year had been, they’d all say it was great, amazing, fantastic. If you asked me how the past year has been, I would say it was great, too—but unlike them, I’d also be lying.Against all odds, Alex Alvarez is lonely after he realizes the girls he dates only value him for a good Instagram photo and a pair of soft lips. And being the only single one left in the family isn't helping. But when he comes across a certain letterman jacket from his past, and meets a mysterious, quiet boy who is slow to open up, Alex thinks about some old things he's been trying to avoid, and discovers some new things he'd rather forget.OR: If ODAAT were a telenovela and Alex was bisexual.
Relationships: Alex Alvarez/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 171
Kudos: 196





	1. Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!!  
> This fanfiction has been in the works for approximately one year, and today, I and my best friend Gab are _so_ excited to finally give it to you! This is The Ángel Who Fell From Heaven!  
> I posted a beta chapter version a while ago [see that [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094253/chapters/42771797)] and a little drabble where my OC Ángel appeared for the very first time [see that [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18043325/chapters/42639692)]! Fair warning: those fics are old. My writing's better now, lmao.  
> Gab and I met when she commented on both of those fics, and we couldn't stop replying to each other. Then we got each other's Tumblrs, and then Instagrams, and then WhatsApp. And then she became my co-writer. I couldn't be more grateful for her help and support, because otherwise this would have never happened. I wouldn't have had the motivation to keep going and I would've abandoned this project. Now, I'm so glad I didn't.  
> We really hope you enjoy. This is going to be one wild ride; who knows how long it will last?
> 
> -yucatanmafia (formerly neizlxmigs)

**_Loneliness: Alex Alvarez_ **

If you asked my family how the past year had been, they’d all say it was great, amazing, fucking fantastic. They would probably go on to say that they fell in love with the right person and have never been happier. That all they want to do is frolic in a field with their significant other, and pick flowers, and write each other poems, and cry as they watch the beautiful sunset. 

If you asked _me_ how the past year has been, I would say it was great, too—but unlike them, I’d also be lying.

I head straight for the door, averting my gaze as I walk past Dr. B and Abuelita in the kitchen, cooking tonight’s dinner. On the way, I see Syd and Elena holding hands at the dinner table (they’re not even eating anything! They’re just sitting there, all happy and sparkly), and my mom and her boyfriend Max watching a movie on the sofa. I put on my best “I’m totally happy to see you!” face as I walk past Avery and Schneider in the hallway, undoubtedly on their way to my apartment. They barely notice me, too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other everywhere they go, but that’s just as well. 

I breathe a sigh of relief as soon as I lose sight of them, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and putting in my earbuds. Latino rap music blasts loudly enough to burst my eardrums, something Mami always warned me about. I don’t look at all the other happy couples my age that walk past me in the hallway or the lobby. I probably look like I’m having the worst day of my life or something with the resting bitch face I’ve got going on right now, but I am also straight out of shits to give, and every day I begin to hate myself more for it. I’m getting pissed at everyone in my life— _and myself_ —and becoming miserable. _This isn’t like me._

Things used to be okay, but now it’s all different.

I exhale as I walk past the doors of the apartment building, the warm air of Echo Park hitting my face as soon as I set one foot on the pavement. I unzip my sweater and keep my hands and phone in my pockets as I walk towards the metro station so I can go to the gym, paying attention only when I glance at the signs to make sure I’m taking the right train. 

I can’t help but snicker at some people—a white family of five—getting on and off the trains that look totally lost, like they have no idea what the hell they’re doing. They’re definitely tourists. The mom and dad are pointing at a paper map and arguing, while their son stares down at his phone as their youngest kids run around the area, yelling excitedly about whatever game they’re using their imagination to play. I say nothing to them while pulling two dollars out of my pocket and walking up to the machine where I can buy a train ticket.

As I buy a one-way ticket and put the bills in the little slot that always tries to ruin my life by spitting the dollar back out, a cute girl my age getting a piggyback ride from a taller guy who must be her boyfriend catches my eye. She’s laughing, a sound lost amongst the commotion of the station, and then she’s kissing him on the cheek in a way that makes me think that she’s done it many, many times. My teeth bite into the inside of my cheek hard enough to make me wince, and I snatch the small ticket from the machine, heading over to the gate that has those bars that spin (never bothered to learn what they’re called) and scanning the blue piece of plastic. _God, everyone has a cute girlfriend but me._ The tiny screen turns from red to a bright green with a check mark, letting me pass.

The train begins moving seconds after I sit down. Two boys that look like we could share a classroom almost fall over from the train’s sudden movement. Maybe they’re also tourists, then. One of them, wearing a red hoodie and sporting a freckled grin, grabs onto the seat next to him as he catches the other one, wearing a black T-shirt with the rainbow flag on it, in his arms. They both giggle and kiss each other messily as they sit down, clumsy and sluggish. They both look so damn happy, just holding hands and laughing at whatever they’re saying to each other. A part of me wants to be one of them, to be able to hold someone’s hand and be happy like that. It just looks so _easy_ , but I don't think there's anything in the world more difficult.

Actually, I _do_ have a girlfriend, but it’s barely even a relationship. She only spends time with me if there’s other people around so that they can see she’s dating a hot Hispanic boy. It’s been the same old story with the thousands of other girlfriends I had before her, and I was getting tired of my hopes being crushed at every turn. Even though I’d never say it out loud, I don’t want to be the hot boy toy hanging off their arms like a trophy anymore.

 _The Valentine’s Day school dance is tomorrow night_ , I remember with a sudden sinking feeling in my chest. I exhale, and force myself not to grit my teeth. Maybe I’ll have a chance to break up with her then, if I can come up with a good excuse. _“I like someone else.” “You’re not my type.” “I don’t think of you like that anymore.” “My_ abuelita _says I’m not allowed to date white girls.” Blah, blah, blah._

The train comes to a halting stop, snapping me out of my thoughts. I rub my eyes and sigh, turning up the volume on my music. I notice the neighborhood we’ve stopped in isn’t the one I need to be in. The boys, still laughing, get off the train, holding hands and smiling ear-to-ear. I breathe.

The song playing into my ears ends and a new one starts as I close my eyes and rest my head on the train window, a small part of me hoping I’ll never have to get off, that I can just stay here forever, earbuds in and eyes closed, absent from everything and everyone else in the world.

* * *

Double-checking I still have enough money to get a train back to Echo Park, I hit the STOP button on the treadmill and grab my spray deodorant, only to abruptly notice the logo on the can of deodorant when I hold it up to my armpit. “ _Shit_ ,” I whisper, out of breath. This is _AXE Body Spray_. I had no idea, but a while ago, Mami said that it makes me smell terrible. Must’ve forgotten to pack the new one instead. Now I can’t sit near anyone on the damn train.

I throw the used train ticket and body spray in the garbage can walking out, disappointed. The only thing left to look forward to today is Abuelita’s food. But even then, I can’t enjoy her food without having to watch the other four couples of the family feed and impregnate each other. Yeah, yeah, I’m glad they’re happy, but I don’t need to watch them fuck at the dinner table. Keep it in your pants.

 _Dr. B and Abuelita. Syd and Elena. Schneider and Avery. Mami and Max. The parents at the metro station. The cute girl and her tall boyfriend. The boys on the train._ I can’t catch a damn break, get my mind off of how everyone’s in a relationship, everyone’s in love, everyone’s not a virgin, everyone’s dating someone else, and I’m alone. My girlfriend isn’t interested in me beyond taking a few photos for her Instagram and making out with me. And honestly? The reverse is fucking true, too. I’m looking forward to going home and sneaking off to bed, to get away from everyone else—something I’d never thought I’d ever say, let alone think to myself silently.

The ride home goes by too quickly, and before I know it I’m standing in front of the door to my home apartment. I take a deep breath, put my hand on the doorknob, twist, and enter.

“Hey. I’m gonna take a shower,” I say before anyone can hug me and then push me away and tell me I need to shower.

Syd and Elena are cuddling on the couch. Dr. B and Abuelita are sitting a respectable distance from each other. I roll my eyes as subtly as I can, heading for the bathroom.

“Okay, Papito,” Mami says from the kitchen. “But make it quick! We’ve been waiting on you for dinner!”

“‘Kay.” I enter and close the door behind me, letting go of my backpack. It lands on the floor with a loud thud. I just stand there and breathe for a few moments, throat still dry and shirt soaked with sweat under my sweater. I don’t want to move, don’t want to let time continue to flow. As I close my eyes, I can almost convince myself that’s possible. But then I hear Syd and Elena's laughs and the illusion shatters.

Resigned, I turn the water on, pull off my clothes, and step in.

As I stand underneath the shower head, letting all the warm water rain down on me, I realize I’ve had a headache for the past hour. I’ll have to ask Mami for some Advil or something. Faintly, I file it away as a possible excuse to run away from all the love at the dinner table. 

I slowly sit down on the floor of the tub, knees touching my chest since this shower isn’t wide enough for me to sit with my legs crossed. Resting my head on my knees, I breathe in slowly, trying out that thing that Elena’s therapist told her about. She had told us all about it on the way home, most of it aimed at Mami but the information at large delivered to everyone in the car. Breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and exhale for eight seconds. It made my throat grow tight, because I really wasn’t good at this, but I still tried.

I really want to fall asleep here. I wish that we didn't have to worry about the cost of running water so I could just let my personal rainfall continue falling on me forever and ever. I don’t want to go eat dinner with my family. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and have to go to school and go to the stupid dance. I don’t want to have to break up with my girlfriend and endure that awkward conversation. I want to pause time and stay here. I want to let the tub fill to the brim, until it’s on the verge of overflowing and flooding the bathroom, and then just dive under. No breathing, no seeing anything, no real hearing—just existing for a moment.

It all pisses me off, how I hate everything and everyone and I don’t want to do anything. It pisses me off and makes me feel gross, but it’s not like I know how to do anything other than silently take it. I used to be able to handle myself and my thoughts, my feelings, but now I feel like I am a garden full of immaculate roses and my thoughts and feelings are poisonous vines, weeds. I _hate_ it. 

_Am I an asshole for being this way?_ Probably. I know jealousy isn’t a good thing, and normally I’m not a jealous person, but that’s because _I’m_ the one everyone’s always jealous of. That’s the worst thing: I’d always thought that I’d be the first to have a girlfriend, that I’d always have the most friends, that I’d always be the happiest one in the house, just like I actually _was_ when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Those days were good for me—mostly. I did do a lot of stupid things as a kid, mostly because of “peer pressure” (that’s what Elena and Mami call it), like trying to get a bottle of pills for Finn so he could sell it that one time. And then there was this time when my school went on a field trip and some kid told me to “go back to Mexico” and I pummeled him in the face.

But even in those times, everything still felt okay. My life felt like it went back to normal after a few days. There was a lingering bitterness, a blue tint to things, but nothing that didn’t fade away eventually. When I turned fifteen, though, suddenly everything felt different. 

Maybe it was that my friends started “teasing” me because my sister’s gay, or maybe it was that those stupid racist jokes they started to crack—ones that I used to _laugh_ at—a lot more often, and they got dumber and dumber until it wasn’t funny anymore. It was...annoying. A little infuriating. Slightly hurtful.

When I asked them to stop, they did it _more_ , so I punched one of them in the face. Got in trouble, bruised my knuckles a bit, got sent home, Mami yelled at me. Worth it, because now they don’t talk to me anymore. I like it better that way. 

I think that’s when I lost all my friends—when I stopped putting up with their bullshit and decided I was better than their shitty ass sense of humor.

Suddenly, I feel a sharp sting in my palms. That’s what it took me to notice that I was clenching my fists, and pretty tightly, too. I exhale and open my hands up, trying to relax. Breathe again. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale f–

One, two, three knocks at the door. “Papito, are you okay? You’ve been in there for 20 minutes!” Mami says, concern clear.

I instantly stand up as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong, and clear my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine! I’ll be out soon!” 

_Dammit._ Shouldn’t have sat down. I grab the shampoo and hurry up with the shower, cussing myself out in my head for sitting down in the first place.

After the shower, I pull on a shirt as I step outside my room, deciding I’m never going to be more ready to face the orgy waiting for me with dinner. The dinner table we have is really small—it’s only meant to fit me, Mami, Elena, and Abuelita, but so many people come over every day that we should probably get a new one. Abuelita hands me my plate, and I sit on the couch next to Elena and Syd.

They’re both probably talking about _Doctor Who_ or some other nerdy shit they’re into this week. I don’t care enough to listen, nor do I want to talk about anything else. I just want to eat in peace and scurry away as quickly as I can, because all the talking feels like a bunch of senseless mumbling and the headache hasn’t gotten any better. I stuff a spoonful of food in my mouth, barely tasting it, and try to _look_ like I’m not tired as hell so that nobody asks me—

“What’s wrong?”

_Goddammit, Elena._

I glance at her as I take another bite of my food. _For one thing, you and Syd can’t stop talking to and touching each other for two fucking seconds, and for another thing, I can’t even sit at the dining table_ in my own home _because it’s filled with happy couples that make me wanna vomit._ “Nothing.”

“No, something’s up,” Elena insists, squinting at me. That’s her trademark look for _you’re full of shit, now spill._

“Yeah,” Syd agrees, their eyes doing the same thing. Now they even share facial expressions. Nice.

“I’m fine,” I tell them both, trying to lie convincingly. “Really. I just came back from the gym, I’m tired.”

I think they both exchange looks with one another just before going back to eating their food and whatever nerdy-ass conversation they were both having. I’m just grateful they didn’t keep asking me any damn questions. I don’t think I could’ve taken many of those befores blowing up and quite possibly bursting a blood vessel while running my mouth. 

I shovel all the food I can into my mouth as quickly as possible before going to wash my plate and going to bed. I kiss Abuelita and Mami goodnight, say bye to Syd and Schneider and Avery and Max and Dr. B, and barely acknowledge Elena so she doesn’t have another chance to analyze me.

As I jump into bed, I pull off my shirt and angrily throw it at the wall, not caring where it lands, since it’s not really a nice shirt and I’m not going to wear it tomorrow anyway. It barely makes a sound at all, and I’m stuck in the deafening silence of my room, which is both comforting and suffocating. I wish I could throw something else, like maybe my phone, or a toy, or maybe even the can of damn body spray sitting innocently on my desk. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

The time on my alarm clock, which I would also like to add to the list of stuff I want to throw at the wall, is 10:30. Schneider and Avery will probably be the last ones to leave, at midnight _._ Fuck.

Trying to use my pillow to cover my ears in a pathetic attempt to drown out the happy noises from the living room isn’t working, so I pull out my phone and earbuds from my nightstand and blast Bad Bunny into my ears as loudly as possible. I’ll probably go deaf at 20, but if it means I don’t have to listen to my family be in love anymore, sign me the fuck up.

* * *

Predictably, I did not sleep well last night. My family’s laughter and lively voices kept me up until one in the motherfucking morning. I probably got 30 minutes last night, though not even close to consecutively. To add insult to injury, school was a fucking calamity today—I had to watch all the couples ask each other out and kiss in the hallways—and all things considered, I don’t want to go to the dance tonight. I really, really, _really_ want to just lie in bed forever, not having to deal with or talk to anyone. Just sink into my cool mattress, buried under my soft covers, with all the lights off, music blasting through my headphones. No people, no happy couples, and no chance of breaking my phone. It sounds like paradise.

It makes me want to smack myself across the face. I’ve never been like this.

I scroll through Instagram on my phone, curled up in bed with a mountain of blankets, the fan off. All that’s left on my feed are some dumb memes that don’t even make me laugh anymore because I’ve seen them all. Several times. My phone has been drier than the Sahara ever since I lost my friends. A part of me doesn’t care, but another part of me misses it.

Okay, I don’t miss _them_ , I miss the feeling of being able to text anyone saved in my phone and knowing they’ll respond quickly. I miss having people that actually want to talk to me.

Unwillingly, as though I am being held at gunpoint, I look at the time. 6:00 PM. One hour until the dance begins. I texted my girlfriend earlier and said that she’ll have to find a ride to school herself, because I can’t pick her up tonight. I also said I’ll be late. Neither of those things are true; it’s just an excuse to hide for a few minutes while I try to think of an excuse. So, technically, everything is true—mostly. 

I’ve thought about asking Abuelita for help, but that would mean I’d have to explain the whole “I don’t want to be used” thing anymore, and I can’t say that shit out loud. _Hell no._ I’d rather hang myself than admit I have problems. I am supposed to be the sane, happy, unflappable one in this family, and like hell am I going to ruin that.

Someone knocks on my bedroom door five times very quickly, as if they’re hyper and all full of adrenaline. Only Elena knocks like that, like she’s running high on caffeine and maybe even Redbull. When she barges into my room, I see she definitely is. “C’mon, why aren’t you ready yet? The dance is in an hour!”

She says it like the dance existing is a good thing. I sigh, holding back the urge to punch her in the face and tell her to get the fuck out of my room to let me relax. “‘Kay.” She leaves without closing the door.

“Hey!”

“What?” Her head pops back into the room.

“Haven’t you ever heard of closing the goddamn door?”

She does close the door, but she steps in beforehand. “What’s with you, Alex?”

 _Oh, shit._ “What do you mean?”

She sits down on my bed, right where my legs are. They’ll go numb in five minutes. If I’m lucky. “You’ve been really grumpy lately. Something’s wrong.” She doesn’t say either of those sentences like they’re questions, bugging the hell out of me. She thinks she _knows_ what’s in my head, she thinks she knows all the shit I can’t help but feel. 

“I’m fine, really,” I tell her lightly. “I’m just really tired.”

"But you've said that a lot these past few days," she counters. "Like, c'mon. You're never tired. You're always so happy-go-lucky."

My eyebrows furrow. "Happy-go-what?"

"It means cheerful, Alex," she says, rolling her eyes. "You need to read more."

"I'm perfectly fine the way I am," I say. "Could you please go now? I need to get ready."

She bites the inside of her cheek, then finally exhales disappointedly and leaves, actually closing the door this time.

Good. I close my eyes for a bit, letting my phone fall out of my hands and onto the empty space behind me, dragging them to cover my ears. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ I can hear my heartbeat like this, with my ears pressed against my head and my breathing coming slow. I could stay like this, pretend I feel bad. My girlfriend’s forced smile flashes in the back of my mind and my eyes snap open. Yeah, no.

With a sigh, I drop my hands and push myself off the bed and browse my closet, trying to find something nice to wear.

I come across a white dress shirt and a shockingly black pair of dress pants, blazer, and tie. I'm pretty sure I wore this to Tia Ophelia's funeral, but it's fine. This dance is technically a funeral for my shitty relationship, though, so it's fitting.

* * *

Twenty minutes of gelling, brushing and spraying my hair, and using my mom's makeup to hide my acne go by, and I'm ready to go. I leave the bathroom, putting my mom's makeup right back where it was. Abuelita tells me I look very handsome, I say thanks, kiss her on the cheek, wait for Syd and Elena to be ready, and then we all leave. Time flies by as they chatter, the sound fading into a jumble of background noise to me.

The series of events leading to us driving to school seems to be a blur; for some reason, it feels like just a minute ago I was still in bed scrolling through Instagram. I feel tired all of a sudden, like I could just take off my seatbelt and lie horizontally across the two backseats of the car, and doze off. Everything is either a blur or just blurry, and I feel like I can hear myself breathing. 

Why the hell have I been so sleepy lately?

The car makes a sudden stop in the parking lot that scares the shit out of me. "We're here!" Elena says as she unbuckles her seatbelt and leaves the car, and Syd does the same. 

Sometimes I question Elena's driving ability, but I'd never tell her that. I can already hear her voice in my head, telling me that “the perpetuation of the stereotype that females are bad drivers and men are better drivers is sexist and misogynistic and it must end.” I don’t need that argument. I've heard it a billion times. I know all girls aren’t bad drivers, but Elena’s not the greatest. In fact, sometimes I'm scared that we’ll end up painted on the road. 

My legs carry me out of the car against my own will, and we enter the school all too quickly. Before I realize it, the night I’ve been dreading for so long is here. I feel like a puppet being pulled by its strings, and I really wish I knew who the puppeteer was, ‘cause I really want to punch them in the face. 

Syd immediately takes my hand. “C’mon, Alex, dance with us!”

“No, I have to hide from my girlfriend," I say in a monotone.

I pause, hearing myself. _What_ _the fuck did I just say?_

They both look at me, clearly surprised and confused at what I’d said. There’s a certain sparkle in Elena’s eyes, though, that has me stepping back. “What was that?”

“Look,” I say to them both, managing to squeeze out of Syd’s grasp. “I’ll dance with you guys later, okay?” I turn around and essentially run away, all pride forgotten, before either of them has a chance to ask me any more questions, knowing I will deny this happened to my dying breath.

I immediately head for the concession stand, deciding that if I’m going to be hiding from my girlfriend for thirty minutes, I might as well eat something. I pull two dollars out of my pocket and buy a few bags filled with cookies. They obviously won’t be as good as Abuelita’s cookies—the woman spoils me—but I’ll take what I can get.

The obscure corner of the gymnasium near the garbage cans seems unnoticeable enough. To me, that’s the closest thing to perfection this world will ever find other than Abuelita and me. I sit down behind the recycling bin and put in my earbuds, turning up the music loud enough to drown out the big-ass speakers and taking a bite out of a cookie. I will definitely go deaf by 20.

Worth it. 

I don’t even realize I fell asleep until I open my eyes to see my mom shaking me awake, saying “Papito, wake up!” over and over again.


	2. Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Penelope talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> It's me, Alejandro Asher. My co-writer Gab and I have decided to do twice-monthly updates. The next chapter will be online the 21st. Enjoy!

_**Talk: Penelope Alvarez** _

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good,” Peter Parker says in a tremulous voice, and I snort.

The sentiment is echoed by Max, who is sprawled on the couch with me, and I wonder how the hell Alex managed to convince me to watch _Infinity War_ during my own date. Elena might be our resident social justice warrior always giving speeches, but Papito has some persuasive skills, too. _If only he used this power of his for anything other than convincing me to watch superhero films I’d otherwise use as background noise._

Tony Stark is solemnly placing his head in his hand, mourning that wouldn’t even be there if Tony himself hadn’t recruited him when my phone vibrates in my pocket twice. I roll my eyes and sigh as I take it out. “Sorry, Max. I have to see if it’s one of my kids.” At least we weren’t in the middle of a scene that was actually _good_.

“No, it’s alright!” Max drops a kiss on my head as I unlock my phone. He reaches for the remote and pauses the movie. “Who is it?”

My eyebrows narrow as my eyes scan the screen, worry increasing gradually the more I read the message. “It’s Elena.”

 **[7:05 PM]** **Mami, I think something’s wrong with Alex?**

**[7:05 PM] I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s been in a really sour mood lately, and when we got here, he said he didn't want to dance with us because he had to hide from his girlfriend? Seemed like he said it by accident...did he talk to you at all?**

**[7:06 PM] LOL, what am I saying?**

**[7:06 PM] He doesn’t talk about his PROBLEMS**

**[7:07 PM] Actually, it’s not funny :(**

I shoot into an upright position as I slam my finger down on the call button, holding the phone between my shoulder and my ear so as to keep both my hands free. “Something’s wrong with Alex,” I tell Max, starting to shove my shoes on.

He sits up as well, alarmed at my sudden rush to leave. “Really? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” I respond, growing more and more impatient with each ring. Finally, she picks up.

“Mami?” She’s shouting, voice distorted, barely intelligible through the noise on her end of the call. Music, laughter, shouting—it’s a dance, alright.

“Elena? Go somewhere where we can hear each other,” I tell her, getting up. Max disappears into the kitchen with an explanation I don’t quite hear.

The music continues playing from her side of the line, until it gradually fades out. “Okay, I can hear you now.”

“Where’s Alex?” I demand immediately, not even trying to mask my worry.

“I don’t know,” Elena says. “He just ran off after we talked to him! I don’t know what’s going on with him. I can tell he’s not okay, though. Something’s way off.”

I get that sinking feeling in my chest, like my heart drops to my stomach. It’s the same feeling I got when Victor came back for Elena’s quinces, and when Alex found Schneider drunk in the laundry room. _This is definitely that. This is the start of something bad. I just know it._ “Do you want me to come over there?”

“I don’t know,” Elena says, and I’m starting to get annoyed with how little she knows. Why is it _now_ of all times that she’s lost? “Maybe? I’m just really worried about him, I think he’s going through a hard time.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m on my way now. If anything happens, you call me, okay?”

“Okay,” Elena responds. “Bye, Mom.”

“Bye.” I put my phone in my pocket and snatch up my jacket. “I’m sorry, Max,” I call loudly, sliding on the garment, “but—”

“Something’s wrong?” he says, finishing my sentence as he comes out of the kitchen with a smile and my car keys dangling from his pointer finger.

Instantly, I feel a smile grow on my face, even if my concern isn’t eased in the slightest. _I love this man so much._ “Yeah,” I say softly, grabbing the keys from him. “Something’s wrong with Alex.”

Max immediately grabs his jacket, his signature look of concern on his face. “Did they say what?”

“They said that Alex didn’t want to dance with Syd and Elena because he had to hide from his girlfriend,” I explain to him, only realizing the weight of her words when I repeat them out loud, “which is the least Alex-like thing I’ve ever heard...in my _life_. And I’ve noticed he’s been…” 

I trail off. 

“...really _mad_ lately. Elena thinks there’s something wrong.”

Max pauses for a moment, pulling the door open. “Y’know, now that I think about it, Alex hasn’t said _anything_ at dinner lately, which seems a little unusual. First couple times I went over to yours for dinner, he was pretty talkative.”

“I know,” I breathe as I double-check my makeup in the mirror and head out the door. “He’s a talkative person. That’s just _who he is._ He’s been real different lately.”

We’re halfway to St. Bibiana’s when my phone rings, the screen lighting up with Elena’s name. I press the phone button on my steering wheel; thank God the Bluetooth on my phone is on. “Elena?”

“Mami? We found Alex.”

“Great! Great, that’s great,” I breathe out, silently thanking God and squeezing the steering wheel in relief. “Where is he?”

“He’s, um…” A pause. My pulse rises again. 

“Elena.”

“He—he’s hiding behind the trash cans.”

Silence.

Prolonged, excessive, uncomfortable silence.

“...Like, _outside_?!”

“No! You know the green and blue bins in the gymnasium?”

“Oh,” I say. And then I actually register what the hell she’s saying and I’m talking loud. “Well...can you explain to me what the hell he was doing, hiding there? Or why was he hiding?”

“I don’t know!” Elena defends. _God, what the hell DO you know?!_ “He’s asleep, I think. Or—at least he looks like he’s asleep. I think he was eating cookies? I don’t know, he has his earbuds on, so maybe he just...dozed off.”

This isn’t real. This isn’t _happening_ . _This isn’t Alex._ None of this makes any sense! When I picture hiding behind trash cans with a pair of headphones and a cookie, I can see anyone but Alex. Syd, maybe, but not Alex. Definitely Schneider, but again—not Alex. 

“So… Alex is _hiding from a party_ \--something I’ve _never_ seen him do, army of _cubanas_ fangirling about who they want him to marry or not, he’s always the life of the party, the center of attention, the guy under the freaking _spotlight_! And he loves the spotlight!”

“I know!” Elena exclaims. 

“I thought Alex was _excited_ , just like—well, all the other times! Now he’s hiding behind garbage from his girlfriend.” I exhale. “Something’s definitely wrong with him.”

Elena sniffs. “Yeah, I know. And he won’t tell me anything! Before we left I asked him what was up and he got all defensive.”

That’s the only thing she’s said that sounds like her brother. Thank God, at least this way I know he wasn’t abducted by aliens or something. I stay silent for a moment, thinking. Max, who had been sitting so quietly I forgot he was there, puts his hand over mine on the dashboard. I squeeze it. 

_Breathe_.

“Alex never likes to talk about what’s wrong,” I remind myself and Elena. “He _hates_ talking things out. He just sweeps it under the rug like Snow White’s little pets. Now that I think about it… I really can’t remember the last time he really came to me about something.”

_“It’s not that big a deal!” Alex had shouted as we entered our apartment._

_“You better check your tone,” I warned him, throwing my bag aside carelessly._

_Elena and Mami walked in from the kitchen, looking alarmed. “What happened?” Elena asked._

_“His class went on a field trip to the observatory,” I told them, glaring at Alex, “and he punched a kid from another school.”_

_“Papito!” Mami exclaimed, in shock. She walked over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder gently. “Is your hand okay?”_

_I rolled my eyes at my mother’s unending—and often unjustified—concern and adoration for Alex. He can do no wrong in her eyes. “You know, I’ve had enough of you and your teen crap,” I said, damn well fed up with his behavior up to this point. “I’m not raising a jerk.”_

_“I’m not a jerk! The other kid’s a jerk!”_

_“EVERYONE’S a jerk!” I exclaimed. “It is still not okay to punch them!”_

_“Whatever,” Alex groaned, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and heading to his room. “You don’t understand.”_

_“Okay, well then, make me understand! Because how is this okay?! Did he hit you first?”_

_“No, but he was saying stuff!”_

_“Okay, so what?! What, did he call you a name? What’d he call you--stupid, dummy, goober?”_

_Alex looked at me like I was an idiot. “What grade do you think I’m in?”_

_Mami chimed in, still in her “Papito For President” mindset. “Listen, if Papito punched somebody, there is a good reason for it,” she assured everyone._

_Elena piped in. “Oh, did he prevent you from seeing the Jupiter exhibit? Because that thing is_ amazing _!” she exclaimed._

_Mami turned to him. “Was it about a woman?”_

_Alex rolled his eyes, but she continued. “It’s okay if it was about a woman.”_

_“No, Mami, it’s_ not. _”_

_Alex groaned as he finally admitted what had happened. “He said, ‘Go back to Mexico!’”_

_Silence reigned in the living room of a Latino household, and hell froze over along with all of us. Me, Elena, Mami, Schneider. We’d all stood around like idiots, horror and shock keeping us still as Alex clenched his jaw, looking away. We’d had no idea what to say, what to do._

_The silence dragged on for a moment until I found my voice again, along with the strength to keep the moisture in my eyes under control. “So…this was just some random kid?”_

_“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Hugo and I were talking in Spanish, and the kid walked by with a bunch of his friends and heard us and said it. And I dunno, I just lost it!”_

_I nodded my head, unable to stay mad at my son. If anyone would understand why he would do such a thing, it would be me. “Okay.”_ Breathe. _“This is not okay.” Suddenly I forget how to walk. “I’m gonna call the school and we’re gonna straighten this out.” My voice sounded faint and uncertain, even to my own ears. Goddammit, why couldn’t I just get it together and just say something when my son needed me?_

_“There’s nothing you can do,” Alex told me, matter-of-fact. “None of the teachers even saw him say it. Then after I hit him, Sister Barbara pulled me aside and...him and his friends took off.”_

_Phone in hand, I looked him dead in the eyes. “Alex, we’re gonna figure this out. But you can’t hit somebody every time they call you a name.”_

_“I don’t!” he exclaimed, going back to hyper-defensive. “It was just this time!”_

It was just this time.

 _“Wait, this has happened before?” I burst out, looking at him with wide eyes._ Where the hell was I?

_His face scrunched up in confusion, like I’d just asked a stupid question or the answer was obvious. Like it was one of those everyday things about life nobody ever questioned. “Yeah.”_

_“What did they say?!”_

_“Y’know.” He hesitated, scrunching his face up thoughtfully. “‘Beaner.’ ‘Wetback.’ ‘Gangbanger.’ ‘Pitbull.’”_

_I recoiled at the slurs, in disbelief that anyone would dare use them against my own son, let alone anyone my son’s_ own age. _It was like getting slapped in the face over and over again, and they were just being recited. I had never wanted that for my kid. Never._

_“PItbull is the only one that’s even close to accurate!” Mami exclaimed, disgruntled._

_I bit the inside of my cheek. “Does this happen at school?” I asked him._

_“No,” he said. “Just a couple times when I’m out. Once at a baseball game, the other team was leaving on their bus and they saw me and yelled, ‘Build the wall.’”_

_Mami gasped and Elena exclaimed “Oh, my God!” in disgust._

_“It’s so stupid,” Alex sighed. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it anymore!” He stormed off to his room without another word._

I forget Elena’s on the phone with me, what with the memory of what happened two years ago. “Neither can I,” she says.

I sigh. “Okay, Elena. Thanks.” I hang up, forgetting to say “goodbye, I love you.”

* * *

Elena and Syd are waiting for us at the entrance when we get there. They both point me in his direction. Sure enough, I can see a tall dark-skinned boy sat down behind the garbage bins. Max stays with them as I start yelling “Papito! Papito, wake up!” and shaking him.

He blinks once, twice, three times. Rubs his eyes. Takes out his earbuds and realizes he’s got cookies in his lap. “What the…?” He stops himself when he sees me. “Mami?!”

Without him asking, I yank him upright by his arm. Unprepared to stand up, he falls back against the wall and uses the recycling bin to steady himself. “What are you doing here?” Alex asks.

“ME?! What are _you_ doing here?!” I yell. I take his hand. “Your sister and Syd called me. C’mon, we’re going somewhere else.” Alex protests, but the music is too loud for me to hear him, and I also don’t give a crap.

I drag his ass into my car and lock the doors so he can’t get out. “Alex.” I squeeze his hand, trying to get him to look me in the eye. “Talk to me.”

“About what?” He sounds and acts like he just woke up in the middle of the night and isn’t happy about it.

“About why the hell you were hiding from a party and why you don’t want to dance with Syd and Elena _and why you’re hiding from your girlfriend!_ Who even is your girlfriend, Alex?”

Alex sighs and rolls his eyes, as if someone had just divulged a secret of his. “She told you all that?”

“Yes. Elena called me. She and Syd were really worried about you. She said you didn’t want to dance ‘cause you had to hide from your girlfriend.”

Alex’s jaw clenches. He stays silent. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he murmurs. Suddenly he’s thirteen years old again and someone just told him to go back to Mexico.

“Papito, you’ve been mad every day this week. You won’t talk to anyone, Not me, not Elena, not Syd, not even your Abuelita! Even _she_ told me--” my voice changes to mimic her Cuban accent “-- _something is wrong with Papito._ ” My impression of her doesn’t amuse him. He remains quiet. Closed off. “C’mon, Papito, what is it?”

“You people are so _in love_ and it makes me SICK!” he shouts.

I stare at Alex, who’s resting his elbow on the windowsill of the car door, pressing his hand to his forehead like he has a headache. 

Yet another prolonged, excessive, uncomfortable silence.

Finally, I blink. “ _That’s_ what this is about?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “You guys are always so _happy_ and _kissing each other_ and it’s so disgusting! Like, could you _not_ slobber all over each other for two seconds?! I keep seeing couples everywhere I go, I can’t catch a damn break!”

“You better check your language,” I warn him. “I’m just trying to talk to you. And you’re mad at us for being in love?”

“I’m not mad at _you_ , I’m mad at--” Alex bites the inside of his cheek hard enough for me to notice and stops himself just before finishing his sentence.

I lean closer. “Who, Alex?”

Alex looks _extraordinarily_ tired and pissed off, a look I recognize from his father. It sends chills through me, my own son wearing such a threatening expression. An expression I’ve come to associate with impending abuse. “I’m mad at myself.”

My eyebrows narrow, and I can only whisper one word. “ _Why_?”

Another groan. He bites the inside of his cheek. “It’s so stupid,” he says, the volume of his voice matching my own. He rubs his temples with the tips of his fingers.

Before I can say something else, I hear him murmur.

“What was that?”

He repeats the same sound.

“Papito, I can’t hear you.”

“I said I want someone to love me!” he shouts.

Oh.

Alex covers his face with his hand, seemingly unable to look me in the eyes. He sighs loudly, then rests his elbows on his knees as he continues breathing. “It’s so stupid,” he says again. “It’s so fucking stupid. So so so fucking stupid. I didn’t want to tell you. It’s fucking _embarrassing_.”

I’m at a total loss for words, shocked and unsurprised all at once. Shocked, because Alex isn’t the type of person that seems to crave or want anything romantic. He doesn’t let it show. Throughout the past two or so years, Alex has appeared to be nothing but happy for all of us. He befriended Syd really quickly when Elena and them began dating. He made an effort to get to know Max and be nice and respectful. He’s been kind to Avery ever since she moved in with Schneider, and I’ve never seen him have a problem with Doc. Only recently has this behavior began.

On the other hand, I’m unsurprised. Out of all of us, Alex is the one with the most self-esteem and self-confidence (aside from my mother; it’s probably a tie). It’d make sense if he thought he’d always be the first one to date someone in the family, and was a bit surprised when he became the only remaining one who’s alone.

Except… he’s _not_ alone.

Confusion settles in as I remember one of my other questions. “What about your girlfriend?”

It scares me when he immediately reacts to my question with a scoff and a laugh. “What _about_ her, Mami?” He looks out the window before turning his head to face me. “What about her?”

“I don’t know, Papito! You tell me!”

He bites his tongue as he looks down again. “She’s only with me ‘cause I’m pretty and make a good Instagram photo. I’m only with her so I can say ‘yes’ when my relatives I don’t know ask me if I’m dating a nice Cuban girl.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Except she’s not even Cuban. She’s white as hell.”

I exhale, trying to maintain my patience. I don’t love his language, but bringing it up won’t help anyone. Besides, he seems to be calming down somewhat. “Alex, what is your girlfriend’s name?”

“Olivia.”

“No,” I correct him, alarmed at his answer. “It’s Chloe.”

“No, Mom, I broke up with Chloe months ago. And she technically wasn’t even my girlfriend. I felt too weird talking to her after we had that talk about respecting women. Remember?” He turns his head towards me. “You said there’s hearts behind the boobs.”

With what Syd and Elena had revealed to me, and the horrible screaming match that Elena and Alex had, I don’t know how he thinks I could forget that night. “Yeah, I do.” I caress his cheek with my hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about Chloe?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“Of course it’s important, Papito!” I almost laugh at his absurd words. “Everything that happens to you is important to me. You’re my _son._ ”

He exhales again. It sounds more like a scoff.

“So when did you start dating Olivia?”

“Monday.”

“What did you just say?!”

“Monday, Mom. Monday. _Lunes_. All my girlfriends are horrible. Monday.”

“ _All your girlfriends?!_ ” I exclaim. I might have to ground him. “How many girls have you dated?!”

“Lost count.”

My heart goes into my throat. “You _lost count?_ Can’t you give me a guess?”

He shrugs, seemingly completely laissez-faire to what is incredibly abnormal. “Twenty.”

TWENTY girlfriends. I don’t think I even personally know twenty females. “H-how long ago did you break up with Chloe?”

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging again. “Five months ago, probably.”

I pause to do the math. “That’s like, a girlfriend a week!”

“I know, Mom. My girlfriends were horrible. I just told you.”

“How are they horrible?” I take his hand and squeeze it again, wanting to connect with my son again, because obviously we lost touch somewhere along the line. “Did one of them hurt you?”

“No, but that’s just it,” he tells me, squeezing back. “They didn’t do anything. They wanted to be seen with a pretty boy and that’s it.” He lets go of my hand to run it across his face again, the embarrassment seemingly returning. “And I like being pretty, but...it makes me feel used, and I’ve had enough of that.”

Alex keeps saying too much. “Enough? What do you mean enough?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. My friends are dumbasses.”

“I already told you to check your language! I won’t tell you again!”

He lets out a breath. “Yeah, okay. _Sorry._ ” I could smack him across the face for how fake that “sorry” was but I hold back. “They’re racist and stupid and pick on me ‘cause of Elena.”

My eyebrows narrow even more, which I hadn’t realized was possible. “What? Are they making fun of Elena ‘cause she’s gay?”

“Of course,” he says, shrugging like it was obvious. “And they always tell these dumb racist jokes about black people and Latinos. They also don’t get that Latino people aren’t _just_ Mexican.” He rolls his eyes.

“Papito, _what do they say?_ ”

He looks me dead in the eyes. “You really wanna know, Mom?”

I nod, even though I really don’t and I feel like I want to vomit.

Alex breathes in. “One time Finn told a joke that went, ‘A black woman has five children that all look the same and have the same first name. How do you tell them apart?’”

My heart goes into my throat as I ask, “How?”

Alex gulps. “Their last names.”

“ _Ugh._ ” I shake my head. “That’s disgusting.”

“I know,” he says. “Their Latino jokes are worse. ‘What’s a Mexican’s favorite sport? Cross-country!’”

I groan again. “Don’t repeat any more of their jokes.”

“I didn’t want to.” 

Alex and I sit in silence for a while, before I squeeze his hand again, and ask, “So, do you want to go back inside?”

He lets go of my hand, and opens the sun visor. He looks at himself in the little mirror and runs his hand through his hair to make sure it still looks good, and exhales. “Yeah.” He puts the sun visor back up. “I wanted to break up with Olivia while I was here. I’ll do that and then we can leave.” He opens the car door, then quickly closes it. “Oh, and you don’t have to tell Syd and Elena. I don’t want to ruin the night for them.”

“I think they’ll be fine with whatever you want to do.” I open the car door. “Now, go break up with your girlfriend.”


	3. Cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex meets someone new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> We're now including footnotes that you can click on in our fics for when there's Spanish words that non-Spanish speakers won't know. Since I (yucatanmafia) and my co-writer are both Hispanic, and the Alvarezes are Cuban-American, it's quite inevitable to use Spanish dialogue in this fic. A number in superscript will be right next to any Spanish word (or really, anything that needs more context) that you can click on. Clicking on it will send you right to the end notes, where you can see the footnote. Then you can click {return to text] and you'll go right back to the paragraph you were just reading. Simple!
> 
> I used [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4579026) article to find out how to do it, in case you want to include footnotes in your own fics. It is a little tricky, though, especially if you've never used HTML before.
> 
> Enjoy Chapter 3!

_**Cookies: Alex Alvarez** _

I’m still fucking reeling from the talk with Mami in the car. I can barely make sense of what the hell happened and how I feel about it, but the walk from the parking lot back into the school isn’t that long, so I don’t have much time to put myself together. I breathe, in, out, in, out, until I feel like I might just have a grip on my life again. Or a grip on myself, kind of. Having to tell my mom the truth was the most embarrassing shit ever, and I’d really rather take a nap in the parking lot and wake up to a car’s headlights than have to do that again.

It takes a solid second for me to physically shake that thought off. 

I try to bring myself back down to Earth by making sure I still have my belongings--my earbuds and my phone in my pocket, along with the bags of cookies I’d bought earlier. It kind of feels like a new day with the nap I’d taken; I forgot I even had the cookies, though I’m definitely not complaining. 

I finally enter the gymnasium, trying not to scowl too badly, and my eyes begin lazily scanning the room for Olivia. A part of me really doesn’t want to find her, because maybe that’d be easier than any other outcome. It doesn’t take me very long to spot her, though. I bite back a groan and start walking her way, stuffing my hands in my pockets, until the crown parts enough for me to see her fully. I pause, realizing that she’s not exactly alone. In fact, she’s dancing with another boy, close enough it’d give Sister Barbara an aneurysm if she saw it. My heart drops into the pit of my stomach like a freaking rock, and I don’t even know why.

I stare at them for a moment, like I stare at Elena when she’s running on two hours of sleep and three cups of coffee, trying to decide if she’s just trying to enjoy herself while I was away or if she’s a ho. The closer I get to the dancefloor, the more I see what she’s _really_ doing with him. I really hope Sister Barbara doesn’t get close to them, because I really don’t want the poor woman to be another RIP. They’re dancing so close to each other they’re practically fucking. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t leave the dance knocked up tonight. Elena will kill me if she ever finds out I thought like that, but right now, I really don’t care. As I take a few steps closer, what I see makes me freeze up, feeling like it’s carnival and someone threw a balloon full of cold water at me. 

Recognizing the boy Olivia is dancing with really feels like a punch to the gut.

It’s Finn.

I stand there numbly for a few moments that feel like fucking minutes before I turn around and take out my phone. I start walking as I type furiously, jaw clenched tightly. 

**[8:06 PM]** _im done_ **  
****[8:06 PM]** _we are fucking done_   
**[8:06 PM]** 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

I bite the inside of my cheek harder every time I hit the Send button, and by the time I’ve hit Delete on Olivia’s number, all I can taste is blood. I hated myself for the sinking feeling in my stomach, the pain that seeing them made me feel. I felt like someone had punched me square in the chest, and then I felt ridiculous for feeling that. I _wanted_ an excuse to break up, right? I _wanted_ to end this charade. And here I was, finally putting an end to it...but I guess they’re really not kidding when they say “careful what you wish for.”

 _Why the hell does this kind of hurt?_ I basically asked for this. Now I had to quit whining and deal with it. I speed up and shove my phone in my pocket, not bothering to look for Syd and Elena as I walk back to the car. I’d be happy to keep my head down and not be bothered for the rest of the fucking week. I sure as hell won’t be telling Mami about this, either. She’ll go all Terminator on them and make a scene. One time when I was thirteen, a girl went out with me only to make her ex jealous, and Max was literally the only reason that Mami didn’t rip her head off. She even tried to take off her earrings! If she’d stepped out of her heels, we would’ve been doomed. 

I feel a headache start to build up as I get closer to the gym doors, no doubt my body telling my brain to kindly shut the fuck up. I don’t even hesitate before dropping into the first chair I find, close enough to the doors that the noise is a bit less oppressing. _Why did I do something so fucking stupid?_ Date and kiss the first girl that says I’m cute any chance I get? Isn’t that what desperate people do? God, I’m worse than Elena. I’m worse than _Schneider_! Now I’m definitely feeling fucked up.

I scrub my hands up and down my face, trying to ease both the headache and the overwhelming frustration. I’m struck with the urge to punch something— _someone_ —and pull my hair. Mami will have my head if I so much as scratch someone so I go with the latter and it’s a good substitute for the screaming fest I want to bring on. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. I should be happy, I should feel freaking fantastic, I should be fine. And instead I was sitting here, moping, acting like a freaking idiot because the girlfriend I didn’t even like was dancing with my best friend. Way to go. I was pathetic. 

I pat my pockets, trying to find something to distract myself with, and feel the cookies that are still there. I grab one of the bags and stuff two cookies in my mouth at once, now that I know for sure that I won’t be sharing these with anyone. Normally I’d never do this because it gets my teeth dirty and crumbs fly everywhere, but to hell with anyone that expects me to smile at them now. Tonight’s fucking gone. I just want to go to sleep and skip to tomorrow--forget the talk I had with Mami, forget that Olivia and Chloe and all my other ex-girlfriends exist. I stuff more cookies in my mouth as I gradually hate myself more and more. I wish I could just close my eyes and pretend this never happened, blink and find myself in some fucking alternate universe where I wasn’t suddenly miserable every day.

This day just has to _end_ already, for fuck’s sake.

_This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal._

Even though I know it won’t do me any good, I slowly glance at Olivia and Finn again.It’s true, the human being does seem to be inherently masochistic. They’re both still dancing as if it’s a porn shoot. _****_I roll my eyes and look in the other direction with poorly concealed disgust, trying—and failing—to keep my mind off the fact that my ex-best friend and my ex-girlfriend are both _putos_ [1].

I should’ve followed in Elena’s solitary footsteps and become a social pariah when I had the chance to. Hey, there’s still time; highschool is nowhere near over, unfortunately for me and everyone else, so I can fix my mistake and say fuck you to my social life. It seems like a fantastic idea to me. 

Another cookie goes in, and I belatedly realize I am drowning my sorrows in treats. Oh, well. I lean my head against the surface of the door and close my eyes. I’m so _tired_. I want to sleep so bad, but the mere thought of another night of laying in bed, exhausted, and waiting for sleep that won’t come makes me shudder. I briefly consider taking my phone out and listening to some music that’s actually _good_ , but fuck knows how well I’d be able to hear it over all the noise in this goddamn gym. I’d have better luck hearing _anything_ but screaming through one of Mami’s scoldings. _Life sucks._ _Life sucks so fucking much._ I wonder when things will start to feel normal again.

And then I realize, with a sudden pang of fucking terror, that that might not happen. 

I sit up, swallowing dryly, realizing that maybe I won’t stop feeling this way. I won’t stop falling into the arms of the first girl to call me cute, I won’t stop going back to my shitty best friend, I won’t stop being jealous of my family and then feeling guilty because they deserve their happiness so fucking much. I might not stop dragging myself to bed and laying around for hours on end because sleep wouldn’t come. I might not stop wanting to tear my hair out, and yell at everyone for everything. I might not feel fine again.

For some reason, my throat feels a little tight. I clear it, clenching and unclenching my fists. I realize I’m shaking, and my nose is burning, and the music is so fucking loud, and my chest _hurts_ and—

 _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ I clutch at my chest, squeezing my eyes shut and bending over in my chair, trying to ease the weird pain. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

I repeat the same thought over and over again until my chest hurts less and I can take a deep breath, slowly letting go of my crumpled shirt. My hands are still shaking. My fingertips are red. I don’t even want to think about what the hell just happened, so I just rub at my eyes, which hurt from just how drained I am. The noise is driving me insane, vibrating through my whole body, and I want _out_. Like, now.

I decide I’m ready to get the hell out of here. Or, at least, spend the rest of the night in the car waiting for Syd and Elena. Anything is better than staying in this shithole.

I open my eyes and blink the spots dancing over my vision away, putting the remaining cookies back in my pockets. I stand up, scratching the back of my neck harder than strictly necessary, and turn around to leave when something catches my eye. Well, someone. She--or he... or, _they_ , I guess--are sitting down on the floor, in the corner. It’s darker than usual in the gym, but the lights are bright enough for me to make out a person. They look distant. Sad. No, depressed. Anxious? Like Elena after a fight with Syd, or Mami when she’s stressed out because of her job, or Abuelita when her succulents die. They’re too far away for me to tell their gender. But they look like a girl, kind of. They’re really short and slim. I can tell they have dark skin that looks similar to mine. The lights brighten up for all of five seconds, allowing me to see their face get illuminated in neon, but it’s enough.

I feel like I’m already making a huge mistake as my legs carry me away from salvation and towards their curled up form. _Haven’t I dated enough girls for two lifetimes, three if I’m complacent?_ A full, unopened cookie bag is suddenly back in my hands as I make my way across the entire gym, telling myself it’s okay. I don’t _have_ to date her, right? I can just say, “Hey, you look like you’re having a bad time, here’s a cookie, hope you’re doing alright, peace!” and run away as fast as my legs will carry me. I’m doing a _nice_ thing. A good action! I’m not about to make another mistake. Not again. Nice thing.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes. It’s Elena.

I don’t think God agrees with me.

**[8:12 PM] Alex, we have to talk about your girlfriend right now. Where are you?**

I groan as my fingers hurriedly type out a response. For real? 

**[8:13 PM]** _yea i kno shes a whore i saw her fucking Stupid Finn_ _  
_ **[8:13 PM]** _oh sorry did i say fucking_ _  
_ **[8:13 PM]** _i meant dancing_  
 **[8:13 PM]** _but apparently she doesnt know the fucking difference_  
 **[8:14 PM]** _it’s fine im over it i wanted to break up w her anyway_  
 **[8:14 PM]** _so can u just forget about it cuz i dont wanna talk about it_  
 **[8:14 PM]** _ever_  
 **[8:14 PM]** **You** muted **elena**.

It might be overkill, but right now, throwing the phone at the ground and stomping on it seems like a reasonable reaction, so I guess it’s fine. Instead of going through with my plans of destruction, I put my phone back in my pocket and start speed-walking over to the maybe-girl. Their head’s in their hands and they’re sitting down on the floor now, legs crossed. They’re wearing a black collar shirt and pants to match, and they look fucking miserable. Their hair is cut real short. I get closer.

It looks like they’re a boy. Or a butch lesbian. I don’t know. I can’t see their face yet. 

“Hey.”

They look up at me, eyes shining with something I can’t read, and I can tell he’s definitely a boy and _not_ a butch lesbian. He hesitates. “Hi,” he says back. I can barely hear him over the music, but it’s okay. He sounds kind of defensive, suspicious. I haven’t even done anything yet and I’m already suspicious. Great.

“You look sad,” I tell him. Maybe a little blunt, but effective. I hand him the bag of cookies and pull up the most charming smile I can muster after the shitty evening I’ve had. I hope it’s enough. “May I interest you in a cookie?”

His eyes dart up to my face and down to my hands many times before he takes it from my hand, movements quick and jerky. He opens it. “Thank you.” I notice that when he speaks, he's got a bit of an accent. A Hispanic one, like Abuelita. He doesn’t say anything else to me, or even look at me.

I have a feeling he wants me to go away, but I can’t. And I don’t know why. I think not knowing things is something I’m going to have to get used to now, and I hate it. It fucking _sucks_. 

“Are you doing okay?”

He looks at me again. “Who wants to know?” he responds, raising an eyebrow as if he’s being accused of a crime he totally committed, catching me off guard.

 _That was a little rude, right?_ I start to debate in my head whether or not he’s _trying_ to be mean. But I give him the benefit of the doubt instead and try to lighten up the mood by playing dumb: turning my head to the left and right as if looking for someone before turning back around and saying, “Uhh… _I_ do.”

The boy kind of glares at me, and I start to wonder if he’ll whip out a pocket knife and stab me or something. I can’t even tell if he’s trying to do it on purpose or not, but if looks could kill, I’d be bleeding on the floor right now. 

He uncrosses his legs, instead opting to sit on the floor with both of them stretched out. “I’m doing fine.” 

Evidently, my attempt at making him smile didn’t work.

I bite my lip in thought. I don’t want to bother him, but I also wouldn’t want to leave someone having a shitty time behind alone on the dancefloor. I know what it’s like to be stuck somewhere and wish only to be able to go back home. Hell, I felt like that a mere minute ago. And I still do.

“Are you really sure? ‘Cause you look li--”

He interrupts me before I finish my sentence, decisive. “Honestly, I’m fine. I’m just waiting for my mom to pick me up because I don’t want to be here anymore.” He pauses to take another bite of his cookie, then sighs. “I called her a little while ago, but she’s not here yet.”

“Oh.” I scratch the back of my head awkwardly, a bit lost for words. “Okay, then.” I turn away, biting the inside of my cheek. I have no idea how to explain what I feel about his response. I just feel _wrong_ . “Well, uh, see you in school,” I stammer eloquently. _Ugh._ The sound of the words “Well, uh…” coming out of my mouth is something I never want to experience again.

He looks surprised by what I say, as if he didn’t know we go to the same school. How else would we be at the same school dance, I wonder? “Yeah.” He eats another cookie, still looking morose.

I start to head towards the doors of the gym, once more on the verge of grasping salvation in my hands, before an idea pops into my head. I have no idea where it came from, but I won’t be able to let it go now. It'll just bother me the more I try to dismiss it, until I am consumed by it entirely.

I turn around. “Did your mom ever say when she’d get here?”

The boy doesn’t answer. “Hey,” I repeat again. He doesn’t respond.

I realize he has earbuds in his ears. I sigh. I want to call out his name, but then I realize I don’t know his name. I opt to just wave my hand in front of his face like a moron, regretting my decision instantly. He looks up and blinks at me in surprise, then takes his earbuds out. “Yes?”

“Did your mom ever tell you when she would be here?” I repeat.

“No,” he says.

I bite the inside of my cheek and think for a moment. “Would she be okay with it if my mom and I took you home?”

He blinks, then leans closer to me as if he can’t hear me over the music. “What?”

Instead of repeating myself, I just gesture for him to follow me as I walk out of the gymnasium. He hesitates but follows. I repeat myself once we’re in the hallway. “Do you think she’d be okay with it if my mom and I took you home instead?”

The boy opens his mouth to say something but then immediately closes it. “Uhh...I’d have to call her,” he says sheepishly for whatever reason. He crosses his arms across his chest as he continues. “But she’s at work right now, so… probably.” Then he takes out his phone.

“Okay. I’ll call my mom, too.” I walk a few steps away from him and take out my own phone to call Mami.

There’s barely one ring before she picks up. “Yes?” she says, almost sounding breathless.

My eyebrows narrow. “Why so winded?”

She lets out a sigh of what sounds like relief. “Sorry, Alex, I was just worried. I mean, you were taking so long--”

“Oh,” I respond before she finishes talking. “Yeah, sorry. Wait, how long were you waiting?”

“Not that long,” Mami says immediately. “It’s fine. So, why are you calling?” she asks, seemingly having caught her breath now.

I blink as I try to think of what to tell her, and it occurs to me that it’ll sound crazy as hell when I explain it out loud. But I try anyway. I got this kid’s hopes up, it’d be a dick move to back out of it only ‘cause I’m uncomfortable. “Um… well, there was this boy who was sitting by himself and he looked like he was having a really bad time, and we started talking and he said he was waiting for his mom to pick him up, but he doesn’t know when she’s coming.” I clear my throat. “And I was wondering if we could give him a lift?”

“Is his mom okay with it?” is Mami’s immediate question.

I turn around and notice that the boy is off the phone. “What did she say?”

He only nods.

I turn my attention back to Mami. “She said it’s fine.”

“Okay. Then sure, we can do that. But we’ll have to turn around and come back for Syd and Elena afterwards.”

I roll my eyes at that last part, but I know we can’t just leave Syd and Elena at the school without a ride home. “Okay. We’ll be right there.”

We say “goodbye” and “I love you” before I hang up and put the phone back in my pocket, then return to the boy’s side. “She said it was cool.”

He blinks, responding just a beat too late. “Okay.”

I smile and exhale. Does he always take longer than usual to reply? “Okay.” There’s an awkward pause, during which my stomach churns, before I gesture to the exit doors and say, “Let’s go, then.”

Mr. No Name sits in the backseat while I sit in the passenger seat, and Mami in the driver's sit. There's silence, and I feel like sinking into my seat and never rising again. 

The boy is the first one to speak, even before my mom. That's _got_ to be first. “Uh, y’know, this is really nice of you, but my house is pretty far away, so you really don’t have to do this, and I don't want to bother you--”

“Oh, that’s nonsense!” my mom says as she turns her head around in her seat to face him. She's smiling. “It’s our pleasure. So, what’s your name?”

She says it casually, almost as an afterthought, concentrating on the road. It gives a feeling of comfort, confidentiality, and not for the first time, I think mom is a great nurse.

He hesitates yet again. That makes like, what, three times he’s hesitated before answering an easy question? The boy clears his throat before replying to Mami in a voice barely above a whisper.

She leans closer to him. “Can’t hear you.”

“My name is Ángel,” he says. He pronounces his name in Spanish, word harsher and tilted. 

“Oh,” Mami says, surprised. She puts the keys in the engine and starts up the car, and then glances over at me. “Did you know that?”

I grin, realizing how dumb it was that I’d never gotten his name. It seemed funny after all the shit tonight. “No.”

Mami smiles. “Ángel,” she says, repeating his name, almost wondering. “It’s a nice name.”

His voice goes back down to barely-audible, subdued. “Thank you.” 

“Do you always say it like that? You never let people call you Angel?” she says, saying his name the English way now. Angels. Heavenly beings. For some reason, I don't like it much in English. Too many expectations.

“No, I hate that,” Ángel responds immediately, vehement.

“How come?” Mami says. Her vision darts over to my face before quickly returning to the road as she leaves her parking space, as if to say, _Wow, that was a really quick answer._

I’ve only just met Ángel, but he already seems to be the most sheepish person I’ve ever met. Although maybe sheepish isn't the right word to describe him. 

Maybe defensive is.

“I just don’t like it,” he says a short moment later. “The way it sounds. I prefer Ángel.”

Mami nods. “Okay, then. Ángel it is.” The car stops at the parking lot’s exit. “So, Ángel, where are we headed?”

Ángel gives Mami directions to his house as she drives, quiet and careful. When he said his house was pretty far away, he wasn’t kidding. Once she starts driving, I put an earbud in my ear, relieved to listen to something that soothes me: reggaeton. But Mami continues her conversation with Ángel, soothing. 

She asks him if he's. He says his parents are from Mexico. She asks if he's ever been there. He says no. The more answers Ángel gave my mom, the more questions Mami would ask him. And his answers were always really short.

“What part of Mexico?”

“Yucatán.”

“Where is that?”

“Far south.”

“So you speak Spanish?”

“Yes.”

“Was it your first language?”

“Yes.”

“So when did you learn English?”

“When I started school.”

It’s as if Mami is trying to force out all the words she can out of him, like a near-empty toothpaste tube that you have to roll up and squeeze half to death in order to get the last of the toothpaste out. I want to say, _Mami, it’s not an interrogation,_ because it almost hurts to listen to. It’s so obvious that Ángel is shy and doesn’t want to talk to strangers. I knew what it was like to have a reluctant conversation with Penelope Alvarez. It isn’t fun.

A little bit after their conversation finally dies down, we approach a Kwik Trip gas station. “You can just drop me off at the gas station,” Ángel says. 

Mami’s eyes narrow. There's a familiar look of Latino Suspicion there. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, my house is super close to here,” he says instantly. “My dad’s asleep and I don’t wanna wake him.”

Mami raises a painted eyebrow. “Are you _really_ sure?”

“Yeah,” Ángel says. “This is fine.”

Mami shrugs. “Okay then.” She pulls into the gas station and stops the car, and Ángel opens the car door. 

“Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” she says sincerely. And then he gets out, shuts the door, and disappears into the Kwik Trip.

Mami puts her hand on the gearshift, then pauses. I can practically feel her think.

“What is it?” I ask her, trying not to sigh.

An all-too familiar look of concern is written across her face. “So he was just sitting in the corner of the gym, alone?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

Another long pause as my mom pensively stares into space. “And you just met him?”

“Yeah.”

She finally moves the gearshift and pulls out of the Kwik Trip. “I think you should be his friend.”

“Why?” I don’t realize my tone sounds like I just said “Ew, gross!” until the words leave my mouth. I didn’t even mean to say it like that, and I immediately feel my stomach churn with guilt.

Mami gives me a quizzical look, almost disapproving. “Well, aren’t you worried?”

“About Ángel?” To be honest, yes, but I didn’t think giving him a ride home would mean now I have to dedicate my whole life to perform charity for him. 

Elena must never find out about the things that run through my mind or she'll go all Abuelita on me.

“No, about Juanito—of course I'm talking about Ángel!” she exclaims, scoffing at me. “I feel like there’s a lot more to him than he lets on, you know? I mean, didn’t you see how short his answers were? It was like he didn’t wanna talk.”

I almost say, “I don’t blame him,” but I bite my tongue instead. It's easy to close my eyes and keep listening to my music, clenching and unclenching my fists.

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 In this case, Spanish for "prostitutes" or "sluts". [return to text]


	4. Cookie Crumbs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex has a few conversations with different people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! This is a late update, we know. We're sorry.
> 
> We hope we're about to make up for it. Enjoy!

**_Cookie Crumbs: Alex Alvarez_ **

February 15th has always been just another day on the calendar for me, until this year.

I thought that yesterday, fucking Valentine’s Day, had been shitty enough. There was the school dance. That awful talk with Mami in the car. Her saying I should befriend Ángel, the awkward and shy boy that we gave a ride home to. Everyone in my family not being able to keep their hands off their significant other. (I mean, every day I have to endure that is awful all on its own, but Valentine's Day was a special kind of hell).

The past two years or so, Valentine's Day wasn't _so_ bad. I mean, it was annoying, and even borderline agonizing at times. Syd and Elena had just gotten together. Max and Mami were dating. Dr. B wouldn't stop being so anxious about what Abuelita thinks of him. But I wasn't _angry._ Maybe irritated or even a little frustrated, sure, but not angry. And now I _am_ angry, because I want a girlfriend, and that made everything just so much worse. I just didn’t want to be so fucking alone anymore. Was that too much to ask?

I had no idea simply wanting a girlfriend on Valentine's Day could cause someone so much shittiness. There should be a warning about it somewhere,  _** **_ _por que esto no era para nada normal._ [2] And I even had to admit that out loud to my own mother. What a crappy day.

But now it's February 15th, the day _after Valentine's._ And I should be happy that yesterday is behind me, and that there are no couples shoving their happiness in my face, and just live happily ever after.

Except there's Elena.

"Aren't you going to tell me _anything_?" she exclaims as she follows me into the kitchen, looking chagrined. I'd spent almost the whole morning in my room just listening to music on my phone, pretending to be asleep whenever Elena poked her head into my room, just like how the toys in Toy Story went dead whenever the kid came in to play. It had been a blissful couple hours, filled with something resembling the peace Mami often spoke about. Now it was almost noon, and my scraps of happiness had gone down the freaking drain. I thought I'd come into the kitchen and get myself some breakfast, since I’d already stalled enough and if Mami ever found out I hadn’t eaten immediately after waking up, she would skin me alive. But now that Elena has made it her personaln life mission to interrogate me, I really want to reach into the drawer and use Abuelita’s kitchen knife to kill myself.

I sit down at the counter and put my head down on my forearms. _Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Shut the fuck up._

Finally, I look up at her and sigh very loudly. My eyebrows are furrowed and my eyes were narrowed, my arms crossed across my chest. "If I tell you _one_ thing, will you leave me alone?"

Elena smiles without showing her teeth, brightening up. "What's the magic word?"

"Leave me alone."

Elena deadpans and frowns at me. "Come on, you know what the magic word is. Just say it in Spanish or something. That way you don’t have to say it in your first language. Make it easier on yourself, and all."

I raise an eyebrow, marveling at my sister's ignorance. Briefly, I find joy in the thought of enlightening her as to the fact that just because Schneider is more fluent at Spanish than she is, doesn’t mean I’m the same. "Spanish _is_ my first language. That would make it even harder."

Elena groans loudly and sits down across from me. "Just tell me what happened!" she demands, hungry for information. "What was going on with you? And why didn't you care about your girlfriend and Finn? I mean, not that you have any claim over her or anything, because that’s a misogynistic, gross point of view, but I mean, she was your girlfriend, right?”

I lean over across the table in a flash and drop my voice to a whisper, raising my eyebrows sharply so she knows I'm serious. “Stop saying ‘girlfriend’! She’ll hear you,” I tell her in a hiss, my vision darting to the curtain that my Abuelita lives behind. “And besides, she wasn’t really my girlfriend. We were just...hanging out. Having fun. It wasn’t serious.” I sit back down, satisfied. Nothing I just told her is a lie, technically speaking. Except for the “having fun” part but, as a wise person once said: _****__ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente._ [3]

She looks at me with an analytical look on her face, before rushing her words out in a single breath. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re insane,” I clap back instantly, smiling sweetly before scowling.

Then I actually made myself some breakfast so I had an excuse to ignore Elena.

When she finally caught onto how I really wasn’t going to talk to her about the dance last night no matter how much she pestered me, she began _texting_ me. My phone buzzes while I’m playing Fortnite, making my fingers twitch over the mouse.

 **[12:45 PM] You know, you never answered all my questions.** **  
****[12:45 PM]** _and what makes u think i would wanna_  
**[12:45 PM] Why are you being so avoidant? What are you hiding?** **  
****[12:45 PM] Tell me what really happened when you saw your girlfriend with Finn. You texted me when I told you I saw them, Alex. You were** ** _not_** **okay.** **  
****[12:46 PM] And who was that boy you were talking to? And why did Mami and you drive him home?** **  
****[12:46 PM] Why won’t you** ** _talk_** **about this?**

I run a hand across my face, scrubbing harshly, and then through my hair. And then I lightly yank on it—something I do when I’m stressed. It’s a bad habit and it ruins my perfect hair, but it helps me breathe a little. Then I stare at my phone. Then glance back up to my laptop, where Fortnite is paused. Phone. Laptop. Phone. Laptop. Phone. Laptop. Fun, suffering, fun, suffering.

On one hand, the sooner I get her off my ass, the sooner I can forget this ever happened. On the other hand, I could just go back to playing Fortnite. Suffering, or fun? It’s a critical decision that I don’t know what to do with.

I don’t realize I’ve left Elena on read for more than ten minutes until she barges into my room, looking like an angry kitten. She immediately sits on my bed and closes my laptop, snatching it away from me.

“What the hell?” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth, indignant.

She puts her hands on my face. “ _Talk_ to me, Alex,” she says, pleading.

“Get your hands off me,” I snap immediately, feeling restlessness bustle under my skin.

“Only when you tell me what happened at the dance last night!”

“Would you just _stop_ ?” I yell, shoving her away and standing up. “ _ ****_ _¡Deja de preguntar y preguntar y preguntar la misma puta cosa y vete a la puñeta!”_ [4] I didn’t mean to stand up and shout obscenities at her in Spanish, but here we are. I can’t control a single thing that leaves my mouth anymore, because the more I try to, the more cloudy my mind gets and the worst the need to tear my hair out is.

Now Elena stands up, offended and...is that hurt? _****__“¿Cómo te atreves a hablarme así? ¡Yo soy tu jodida hermana, mongo!”_ [5] she says to me, clearly furious with me all of a sudden.

I snort, waving her off. _****__“¡¿Y qué?! ¡No me puedes castigar ni me puedes regañar ni una mierda! No tienes el derecho! ¿Y desde cuando puedes hablar español? Creí que sólo eras una puta gringa comemierda.”_ [6]

Elena stares at me, stunned. Her expression says she’s definitely still pissed off at me, but she seems more than a bit thrown off by how fast my Spanish is.

Then Mami comes in and starts yelling her face off at me for how I’m speaking to Elena and threatens to ground me if I don’t stop and apologize to Elena immediately. I honestly barely hear anything she’s saying to me. Mami makes me apologize to Elena. And even though I do, she still takes away my phone for the rest of the weekend because I clearly didn’t mean it. But I don’t really know what the fuck she expects when you _order_ someone to apologize.

If this is what I get for being alone last night and trying to cheer up someone who was alone on the dancefloor, I’m never being nice again.

The rest of the day goes by slowly. I can’t be more relieved that the sun is going down. I’ve stayed in my room for hours, and I don’t plan on leaving to get dinner or anything else to eat before I go to bed.

I entertained myself with my old Nintendo DS that I used to play all the time up until I was about eleven years old. It’s super small, making it a little uncomfortable to hold it the way I used to what with how big my hands are now. I’d keep playing Fortnite on my laptop, but I’m pretty sure that Mami will come in and yell at me for using it somehow even though she only took away my phone and not my laptop. And it’s not like using it past bedtime is a great idea, either, because the screen’s so huge and it doesn't get very dim. I might as well just leave all the lights in my room on overnight.

I hear two knocks on my door. “Papito?” It’s my Abuelita’s voice.

I look up at her. “Yeah?”

“Well, it’s 8:00,” she says, gesturing to my alarm clock. “Aren’t you coming for dinner?”

I shake my head and look back down at my DS. “I’m not hungry.”

I don’t have to look at Abuelita to know the expression on her face right now. She frowns and closes the door, entering my room and standing right in front of my bed. _****__“Eh-scúch,”_ [7] she says. I do, so she can sit next to me on my bed. Then she gently puts her hands on my cheeks. 

Huh. She closed the door, sat on my bed, and put her hands on my cheeks. It’s everything that Elena did, though it’s significantly less annoying now.

 _I could never scream at Abuelita the way I did at Elena_ , I think to myself.

 _ ****_ _“¿Qué te pasa, Papito?”_ [8] Her voice is soft and concerned. Nothing like Elena or Mami today.

I bite the inside of my cheek and glance down at my DS again. I close it shut and set it aside for a moment. _I already went through this whole thing with Mami. I don’t want to do it again. Not even with Abuelita. With no one, really._

“Nothing,” I lie. “Just a little stressed out lately.”

Abuelita raises an eyebrow. “Ah, really? Is that why you yelled at Elena today?”

I bite down on my cheek harder. “No.” I can do many things, but lying to my Abuelita about my emotions is not one of them. At least, most of the time.

“Then what is it, _mijo_?”

I bite down even harder yet again. I expect to taste blood soon. “I just…” I try to find the words, but trail off and end up looking down at my lap. “I already explained this to Mami and I don’t wanna do that again.” This is the only time I’ve talked about it and haven’t felt mad.

“Papito, you can tell me anything.”

My shoulders slump as I sigh. Then I look at her. “Can you promise me that if I tell you about this now, we’ll never talk about this again?”

She gives me a wary expression. “Okay.”

I exhale. Part of me was hoping she’d say no so I had an excuse to not say it again. “It just makes me feel so gross. Like I need to shower ten times.”

Abuelita’s expression changes to questioning.

“I…” I sigh again. “Ugh. Okay. You know how… everyone in the family’s dating someone else? I mean, Mami got back together with Max, and Avery just moved in with Schneider, and Syd and Elena spend all their time together—”

“I’m not dating anyone,” Abuelita points out, shrugging her shoulders. 

I resist the urge to tell her otherwise and opt for a more sugarcoated version. “Yeah, but even you and Dr. B… have each other. And even if you didn’t have Dr. B, you still talk to Abuelito all the time.”

Abuelita nods. “That’s true,” she says. “Berto is still in here.” She points to her head, meaning her mind. “And here,” she says, pointing to her heart. “And here—”

Her hands begin to gesture to lower parts of her body before I grab both of her hands and exclaim, “Okay, I got it!” in a panicked voice. Then I let go of her hands. Now I feel like I need to shower _twenty_ times.

I exhale and continue. “Anyway, my point is, everyone has someone to lean on. And I…” I trail off again, shrugging my shoulders, struggling to find words that don’t sound too dramatic. “I really want that. And it just really bothers me that I, of all people, am the only one who doesn’t have that yet.”

I decide not to tell Abuelita about the thousands of “girlfriends” I’ve had. She wouldn’t take it well.

“ _Ay, papito,_ ” she says, putting her hands on my face again. I let her. “You want a girlfriend.”

I almost physically recoil at the way she puts it. Not that the idea disgusts me or anything—I just said I’ve had tons of them before—but…hearing my thoughts so plainly summarized like _that_ raises the desired shower number to thirty. And I don’t even know why. I open my mouth to respond, then close it when I realize I don’t have anything to say to that except for “yeah”.

Shit.

She wraps her arms around me and pulls me closer to her. She always used to do this to me when I was younger. My head would always rest on her shoulder. But now that I’m a few months away from being sixteen and the tallest in the house, _she_ ends up putting her head on _my_ shoulder. “I know what that’s like, to feel alone,” Abuelita tells me. When your abuelito died, I was very heartbroken. I did not cook for a week.”

 _Wow._ Even during a time like mourning the death of your husband, I would’ve thought Abuelita would have used cooking to pass the time. “Really?” I was five or six years old when Abuelito died. “I don’t remember that.”

She nods. “ _Sí_. You were still very little. But then I remembered that he never left me. He is still here,” she says, pointing to her heart, and I pray to God that she does not point to anything else again.

Thankfully, she doesn’t. She squeezes my hands instead, and looks into my eyes. “I am here, Papito. One day, you will find a beautiful Cuban girl who will make you so happy.”

I smile. It’s a little corny, and there’s a good chance she won’t be specifically Cuban, but it’s still a nice thought. “Thanks, Abuelita.”

She smiles. “ _ ****_ _De nada, mi niño._ [9] But until then…” she says, letting go of my hands and hugging me again, “I am the only woman in your life that is good enough for you.”

I smirk and roll my eyes in amusement, hugging her back. “ _Gracias, abuelita._ But we’re just friends.”

Abuelita laughs too.

* * *

_We’re here for a quinceañera, I think. Fuck knows who’s turning fifteen tonight, or why my family has even decided to come, or how my family knows the quinceañera’s family. I don’t know shit about why I’m here._

_I sit at the table where my family is. It’s me, and Mami, Max, Elena, Syd, Abuelita, Dr. B, Schneider, and Avery. I simply sit and eat my stale, tiny-ass piece of cake (I swear to fuck, the cake is never good at a quinces) and scroll through Instagram on my phone. Or, at least, try to._

_Instagram is blank. There are no new posts, no stories for me to see, nothing in my DMs. No proof that anyone has ever even used this account. My profile picture is blank, and there’s just an empty space where my username should be. The counters for posts, followers, and following are all at zero. When I try to refresh, the app just loads forever until it crashes._

_I set my phone down and look up, only to realize everyone at my table has left and is on the dancefloor. I frown. They didn’t even give me any warning they were leaving, no “hey we’re gonna go dance” just so that I would know. I get up and head to the dancefloor only to realize the dancefloor is HUGE. I’ve never seen a room this enormous. There’s a whole-ass mega-crowd of people dancing, each one with someone else. It looks like a fucking concert._

_Nevertheless, I try to push past the parade of people who all have someone to dance with by their side, someone they’re holding or kissing or hugging or some other gross shit like that. Makes me want to vomit. I look everywhere for someone I know. Elena, Mami, Abuelita, Schneider. Anyone._

_And then I do see someone I know. Two people, actually._

_The music and the crowd all stop at exactly the same time, as if they had practiced it. It’s almost eerie. The crowd then moves aside, and I almost vomit my cake when I see that the quinceañera and _ ****_the escort [10] are Olivia and Finn._

_They start dancing together and I’m feeling lightheaded. I_ need _to get out of here. I HAVE TO FIND MY FAMILY. Where the fuck are you? Where the fuck are you? Why did they all just disappear?_

_Somehow, I remember how to use my legs. I start pushing past the enormous crowd of people, desperately searching for someone in my family. The crowd seems to go on for eternity. How long have I been looking? Days? Weeks? Months?_

_I find my way back to the front of the crowd where Olivia and Finn are, even though that’s not where I wanted to be. I thought this was a quinces, but somehow it’s morphed into a wedding. The sky is bright and blue, indicating daytime, even though it was midnight just a minute ago. And we’re outside in a beautiful garden, even though the quinces was taking place indoors, in a hotel. Finn is suddenly much taller than he was before._

_I don’t know what’s happening._

_Someone says “you may kiss the bride” and Finn does, and the entire crowd erupts in applause. The sound is deafening. WAY louder than my earbuds blasting Bad Bunny ever could get. My hands come up to cover my ears, but that only makes the sound louder, somehow. I think I black out, and I wake up in an empty hospital room. My family is nowhere to be seen. No one is here to see me._

_No one, except for a dark silhouette sitting in the corner of my hospital room. And I can’t tell if they’re a girl or a boy. But I can_ feel _their sadness somehow. It fills the hospital room, and it drowns me._

I almost wake up screaming. Instead, when I sit straight up in my bed in a cold sweat, the only thing that escapes is a gasp, like I just came up for air after spending three minutes holding my breath underwater. I run my hands across my face. Through my hair. _Fuck, it’s hot as hell in here._ I feel like I need to take my shirt off so it’s not so motherfucking hot in here, but then I touch my chest and realize I already don’t have one on. Shit.

I get up from my bed and start pacing, careful not to make any floor-creaking noises so that Mami doesn’t yell at me. _Shit. Mami yelled at me today. She grounded me and took away my phone._

That means no music.

My hands go back up to my hair and they yank on it, so I can feel that brief stinging pain in my scalp that feels kind of relaxing for whatever reason instead of just _stress_ . What the _fuck_ was that nightmare?

Olivia was having a quinces (even though she’s not even Latina, she’s white as crackers) and Finn was her escort. And my family was nowhere to be seen, no matter how long or hard I looked. Then suddenly it morphed into a wedding, and I blacked out, and then I was in a hospital room alone with a dark silhouette. 

My nails rake against my scalp again and again and again. The pain is soothing, somehow. _Am I a masochist?_ I already said I didn’t care about Olivia. Or Finn. Or anyone else. _Why did I just have a nightmare about this shit?_

I want to kick someone. Punch something. Text someone. Just _do_ something. I end up grabbing my pillow and squeezing it and squeezing it and squeezing it until my fingers hurt. I need something to calm me. Something to chill me out. Something relaxing. 

A year ago I probably would’ve gone up to the fire escape and done some weed.

I still remember when Finn had introduced me to it. His brother was the proud owner of a pen that he used to vape weed. At first, I thought the stench was terrible, but I began to not mind it once I tried it. I didn’t really know why I liked it so much. It was just relaxing. Made me more chill. I remember sometimes ignoring the way my hair was uncombed or that my shoes weren’t tied.

Sometimes I came home a little high. It’s not like I’d stumble across the floor or trip over my own feet or vomit into the toilet afterwards. But I remember that week after I tried the weed for the first time, it lingered just a little. Being high had more or less worn off completely by the time I went to sleep, but I felt tired and groggy for three or four days afterwards. And I was super hungry all the time. I’d emptied out the secret cookie tin Abuelita and I hide from everyone else.

When Finn invited me to Bud E. Fest that time, I had almost said no, but I was too tired and thought that I just needed to do a little more weed to chill myself out, so I said yeah even though I wasn’t the hugest fan of how vaping marijuana was making me feel.

I was right. The second time I vaped it at that concert, it was a lot less intense. Like how going on a rollercoaster for the first time might be scary, but the second ride around, you know what’s coming. I felt super chill and relaxed all over again. It felt peaceful: me, my friends, Finn’s vape pens. 

It kind of makes me want to try it again. Being chilled and relaxed is all I need right now. And _damn,_ the weed worked fast. Maybe it was just ‘cause I was 14 or 15, but a few minutes was all it took before Finn and I felt weightless.

Though as soon as I saw Mami and Schneider looking right at me with those binoculars at the concert, it _completely_ sobered me up. I did a full 180 from hyper-relaxed to hyper-panicked. And that panic only made me vape even more (though the weed didn’t help me chill out, not when I saw my mother and Schneider coming straight at me). Then I looked down at my shirt. She had chosen it out for me to wear at the concert. Red and white stripes. _She dressed me up like Where’s Waldo_ , I had realized.

My head throbs, worsening my headache, at another memory, one I don’t like to look back on. Abuelita and I had been doing laundry when she found the vape pen and the little stash of weed in Mami’s pockets. I felt my stomach do backflips in that moment. The last thing I wanted was for Abuelita to find out I had “rode the green dragon” (as she put it). I didn’t want her to hate me. Or think I was a bad kid.

Then I promised her—no, _we_ promised each other—that we’d never do it again. And so I didn’t.

Come to think of it, Finn and his sluts started to hate me when I turned down his weed for the first time, and it only got worse from there.

My craving for the weed starts to dissipate the more I think about how it used to be Finn and I that vaped it, and how disappointed and upset Abuelita had been when I told her. She barely looked at me.

I exhale. Back when I was grounded for it, Mami took away my phone for four months. That sucked _ass_ , and gave me a good reason to not go behind her back and start vaping it again. I remember how I’d go down to the laundry room and wash clothes with Abuelita a lot. She always took me down there with her because she knew I had nothing better to do. But I honestly started to like the time with her, the way that the hour-or-so we’d spend in the laundry room kind of flew by.

I run my hands through my hair again and breathe. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ I get up and turn on the lamplight, then go over to my closet and grab the hamper.

Quietly as possible, I start putting all the dirty clothes I can find into it. The shirts, jeans, and basketball shorts scattered on the floor, where they landed after I threw them at the wall angrily. The endless amounts of socks that are under and around my bed, from taking them off while I’m trying to sleep. The sweaters and hoodies that I wear every day that have begun to stand up on their own.

I put them all into the laundry basket and walk out of the apartment on my tiptoes holding it, then make my way down to the laundry room to wash some clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took us so long to get out. There was a lot of editing and HTML-polishing we had to do. We hope you enjoyed it. And yes, we do plan on sticking to our schedule again from now on xD
> 
> **Footnotes:**
> 
> 2 Spanish for “because this wasn't normal at all.” [return to text]
> 
> 3 Spanish idiom that's basically the equivalent of "What you don't know can't hurt you." [return to text]
> 
> 4 Spanish for “Stop asking and asking and asking the same fucking question and go to hell!” It takes a lot for Alex to involuntarily whip out his Spanish cussing. [return to text]
> 
> 5 Spanish for “How dare you speak to me like that? I’m your fucking sister, dumbass!” [return to text]
> 
> 6 Spanish for “So?! You can’t ground me or yell at me or anything! You don’t have the right! And since when do you speak Spanish? I thought you were a white-ass shit-eater!” (It sounds better in Spanish, we promise.) [return to text]
> 
> 7 A phonetic spelling of how Abuelita pronounces “scoot” in her Cuban accent. [return to text]
> 
> 8 Spanish for “What’s wrong, Papito?” [return to text]
> 
> 9 Spanish that literally means “You’re welcome, my child.” [return to text]
> 
> 10 Author’s note: I feel weird calling it an “escort,” because that sounds like the quinceañera hired a prostitute. I am Mexican, and we always referred to the quinces escort as the chambelan. ODAAT was the first time I heard a chambelan referred to as the “escort”. But since this is an ODAAT fanfiction, I’ll continue to call it an “escort”. [return to text]


	5. Spanish Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex notices a classmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> We're back (and on schedule!) with another update. :) Hope you enjoy.

**_Spanish Class: Alex Alvarez_ **

Predictably, Sunday was not much better than Saturday.

Despite apologizing to Elena in front of Mami, even if it was with all the sincerity of a pathological liar, I still didn't get my phone back. In fact, I was formally informed that it would stay that way until Monday, and told in no uncertain terms that getting impatient would only screw me over more. Laying in bed and staring at the ceiling or the walls got old quick now that I had no music to go along with it, and I couldn’t exchange three words with my family without wanting to punch the wall or myself, so I fled. Sunday saw me in self-isolation up in the laundry room, neck-deep in floral detergents and dirty clothes until the sun had gone down. It was much better than people, and by the time I locked myself in my room once more, I had come to the conclusion that the washer machine was much better company than people. 

I didn't end up getting a very good sleep, either. Without my music to lull me to sleep, I stayed awake and tossed and turned to no end. I almost went back down to the laundry room to wash clothes yet again, even though there was literally nothing to wash, unless I wanted to start scrubbing shoes. I had even folded everything I washed. Yeah, that’s how bad my day was. But in the end, I had no choice but to stay in bed until I was eventually able to go to sleep. I don't know how much sleep I got, but it couldn't have been more than three hours. All of which left me feeling even more tired than before I went to bed, too.

So Monday was definitely off to a  _ great  _ start.

Whatever. What matters now is that I have my phone safely back in my hands, and I plan to keep it that way. Even better, the weekend is over at last and I finally get to leave the apartment and see people other than my family for what feels like the first time in forever. Sure, I don't particularly  _ like  _ any of these people and to be honest I barely even tolerate them, but hey, they're still different people. I take what I can get, alright?

Both earbuds are firmly in my ears, volume turned up as loud as it can go, and I want them to stay that way for the next day. Or week. Month. Maybe a year would be nice. I give Finn and his sluts a death glare as they walk past in the hallways, and they return it just as fervently—except when they do it, it's not nearly as threatening because they clearly have no idea  _ how  _ to do it. It’s like watching a puppy trying to glare a wolf into submission. They're pasty white boys who don't have tough Latina moms or abuelitas around to learn how to properly glare from. When an angry Latina woman is directing a glare at you, you will know what true fear and pain are. Unless this is Elena we’re talking about, because she’s almost as bad as Finn. The idiocy of the whole situation almost makes me snort. I bite the inside of my cheek instead.

I head to my locker and when I see that my lock has been flipped, I can feel the vein on my forehead begin to swell and I know today is going to be a long, long day. I let out a frustrated sigh that might be even longer, making a few people give me weird stares. I just glare at them, careful to add a hint of the annoyance filling me up, and then they turn away and start speed walking. Ha.

Some schools have locks that are built into their lockers, which honestly seems like the stuff dreams are made of, but some other schools have locks that are separate from their lockers. My school is one of the latter, unfortunately, for pretty much all of us. Because it means that if you make the terrible mistake to leave the lock open, someone can come, take it off and lock it back on your locker in the opposite direction to what it's  _ supposed  _ to be, the dial facing innocently away from you. That makes it very fucking annoying to unlock your goddamn locker, because it's a whole ‘nother process that takes up way too much of your time, as well as the time of whatever poor suckers that have lockers next to you. Which is because you have to get down on the floor and set your stuff aside, which gets in the way of people next to you getting into their own lockers—it’s just a fucking horrible time for all parties involved, okay.

If you've ever flipped a lock at your school, I hope you choke. No, seriously. 

I show up late to my first period math class because of the flipped lock, but whatever. I don't even like my first class—or  _ any  _ of them, really, except for P.E., but even then, Finn's in my class, and I don't even have P.E. today, so that’s fucked, too. I begrudgingly sit down and ignore the snickers from my classmates and that one obnoxious kid that points out the obvious like a freaking pro: "You're late, dude."

Math ends eventually. Thankfully. I leave the classroom with enough information in my head to survive tonight's homework assignment, so I'll be fine. In the hallways, I head back to my locker, relieved to see that nobody fucked with my lock again. I set my binders and notebooks down on the floor by my feet and open my locker, switch out the binders for my first period class for the ones for my second Spanish period, then close the locker and start heading to Spanish in a matter of ten seconds. See, this is how things are  _ supposed  _ to be--quick, easy, and efficient--but  _ no _ , people just gotta be jerks. 

When I get to my Spanish class, I pause before I even fully walk through the door. There is a boy in the back corner of the classroom I had never noticed before, and I can immediately tell it's Ángel, the shy boy from the Valentine's dance last week. There’s something about him, be it his complexion or maybe how he looks like he’s trying to hide, that is unmistakable. He's wearing an enormous hoodie with the St. Bibiana's logo embroidered on it—meaning he's not breaking the school uniform rules, and it’s a pretty clever move. He is not wearing the hood over his head, because I'm pretty sure that  _ is  _ against the rules, but there's something in the way both his earbuds are firmly in his ears and how he’s slouching, leaning down and looking at his phone in a way that would make Mami scold me to high hell, that tells me he would really like to put his hood up.

The bell rings. I blink, snapping out of whatever weird trance I was just in, and hurry to my sit down at my desk. It's one row in front of Ángel's. I think he notices me as I sit down at my spot. Maybe there is something about me that is unmistakable, too.

Class begins, and I forget all about Ángel sitting right behind me. Spanish class is boring, but it is also easy, so that is definitely something. It’s a sort of a break for me. The teacher is white as hell, which Elena would say is predictable, but she is pretty good at Spanish, which is a relief. The last two Spanish teachers I had sucked at the language, and I was constantly raising my hand and correcting something about the lesson, or cringing at how these white students were just being taught so much wrong information about, and how they didn’t know any better and just took it as a fact. Usually, I could care less about whether the teachers were or weren't doing a good job, so long as it didn’t get in the way of my straight A’s, but like hell would I let them taint and twist my language like that. Over my abuelo’s urn of ashes.

I start zoning out as the teacher begins going over verb conjugations and vocabulary that I have known since I was four years old, and damn near almost fall asleep until Travis Aarons, who’s sitting next to me, nudges me back to reality.

It appears that the teacher has called on me. 

I run a hand through my hair, clearing my throat. “What was the question?”

The teacher sighs. "What's the correct verb conjugation for this sentence's subject pronoun?"

Her words go in one ear and out the other. I just look at the sentence on the board and rely on my own  _ hispanohablante _ brain to figure it out.

" _ Correríamos _ ," I answer after a moment, satisfied. God bless my genes.

The teacher pauses before saying, "Yes, that's correct.” She hardly sounds surprised, and she goes back to her lesson in no time, explaining why that's correct. I zone out again; I don't know why that's the right answer and I don’t need to know, either; it just feels natural,  _ y ya _ . That's why I took Spanish in the first place, for the easy A+.

Not that Mami would be particularly proud about a high grade in the language I have spoken longer than I have English, but hey, there’s white kids all over America that somehow manage to fail English all the time, so maybe she will be. A bit. Elena would call me hoping a fool’s errand, but Elena isn’t here, so I don’t care.

When I finally zone back in, the teacher’s going on about a partnered activity or something. I blink and snap back to attention like I was doused in cold water.  _ Wait the fuck up, what? _

“...you’re going to be practicing having a conversation about these things with your partner,” the teacher says, gesturing to the list of basic conversation topics on the board. They’re all things that we’ve covered in the last few weeks, stuff that we have made flashcards out of and taken pop quizzes on.

_Oh, okay._ I relax. Simple enough. Boring, but easy. I'll get through this. Maybe.

"You can choose who your partner is for today. It doesn't really make a difference to me," the teacher says as she takes a seat at her desk, almost expectantly. 

I blink, feeling a headache begin to grow once more.  _ Wait, what? _ We can  _ choose _ this time around?

My head immediately spins around to Ángel behind me before I can even think about why. Before I can say anything, Travis is tapping my shoulder. "You wanna be partners?"

I look back over at him.  _ Oh. _ Travis isn't the worst partner, but he isn't exactly my friend. But whatever it takes to get me through this as quickly and efficiently as possible goes, in all honesty. "Sure."

Maybe it’s better this way. It’s not like Ángel is exactly the most talkative or friendly person in this classroom.  _ However _ , I wouldn’t mind having a conversation in Spanish that was even slightly coherent for once. We’ve had similar assignments before, and it’s always hell, mostly because I cannot for the life of me figure out 80% of what my very white, very American partners are trying to say. 

Exhibit A being my current situation, where Travis might as well be speaking in gibberish. I’m only half sure he actually  _ isn’t _ . The only effort I actually put into this is trying to understand what the hell he is trying to say, but I think that might be more than enough to turn my brain into a smoothie. I swear to God, sometimes white people speak Spanish with an accent so ludicrously thick I have no fucking clue what they’re saying.

I look over at Ángel as Travis stammers out a question in some warped attempt at Spanish, wondering if he’s suffering as much as I am. I almost recoil like a wet cat when I see who he's partnered up with—Mark, one of Finn's sluts, and therefore, one of my ex-friends. I just barely manage to resist the visceral urge to give scowl at him, shaking my head. Travis repeats his question, less confident, and I turn back to him, answering reflexively. Right. 

Travis looks like he desperately wants to cease to exist and I can’t help but relate.

This has gone on for  _ way  _ too long. I'm fucking falling asleep, and my head is pounding enough to make me want an Advil.

Scrubbing my face with a sigh, mumbling my answer to Travis’ newest question. At least he was getting a little better. Not enough to make this easy in any way, but enough for me to be able to let my eyes wander in an attempt to keep myself awake. Nothing here is particularly interesting but at least constantly moving my gaze around is enough to keep me from nodding off halfway through a conversation. But when my eyes land on Ángel again, hoping to find some sort of solidarity, I’m suddenly wide awake.

Ángel doesn't look like he's talking at all. In fact, he looks like he might never open his mouth ever again. He looks so uncomfortable I feel like squirming in my own seat. It’s so reminiscent of how he looked when I first saw him at the dance. He's hugging himself and his gaze is steadfastly pinned on his lap. Ángel looks  _ small _ . Small and like a cornered animal, tense, ready to bolt the second he’s given the chance to. 

It pisses me off, and my stomach twists into knots, making me grimace. 

Mark, Ángel’s partner and top-tier asshole, looks like he's freaking harassing him. He’s leaning way too close to him and dropping his voice to a whisper so low not even I, who is sitting literally one row in front of him, can hear him. It  _ could _ be that Mark is just trying to hear what Ángel's saying, and that's why he's leaning so close, but...yeah, no. Ángel's mouth isn't moving.  _ He isn't speaking. _ Something's definitely wrong.

It takes literally every ounce of self-control within me not to lean over and say, "Dude, are you okay?" I almost do, but then the teacher announces the end of the activity and I breathe a sigh of relief. Hallelujah. All I want is to lean back and relax for a bit, but I can’t help but I keep my eyes on Mark as he stalks off to his seat on the other side of the room, near the front. I watch carefully as Ángel seems to let out a long sigh, probably of relief. 

The bell rings very soon after that, thankfully for pretty much all of us, and everyone scrambles to run away from the classroom. Usually, I’m at the front charge of the escape but this time, I just can’t go. I can’t. 

Instead, I slowly get up and pack up my things, closing my binders and putting the pens and pencils back in my pencil case as slowly as humanly possible. I do it carefully, completely different from usual, as though I have all the time in the world. Which I definitely don’t, but...  _ I don't want anyone—especially not Finn's sluts—bothering Ángel. _

I know I made it look like befriending Ángel was a weird or stupid idea when Mami brought it up, but... I know what it's like when Finn's sluts make you that uncomfortable. I could see it written all over his face. His expression, his body language, his lack of speech. I can’t even describe how he looked without admitting I once looked the same way. I hate being wrong, and I very rarely ever admit it out loud, but maybe Ángel  _ could  _ use a friend. Besides, I wouldn't want to see Finn's sluts terrorize someone else again. He doesn't deserve that.

No one does.

Just like I thought, as I finish packing up my things and putting my hoodie back on, Ángel and Mark are the only two people besides me left in the room. I make my way towards the door, telling myself to act normal, something I've never had to do until this year. If I stand by the door or just stand and watch them, Mark is definitely going to know something's up and is probably going to get aggressive with me, thinking I want to fight or some other brain-dead dumbass thing like that. God, to think I was ever one of them. It makes me understand how Elena felt watching it happen. 

I decide to pop in one earbud and turn the volume down to less than halfway, nodding my head to the rhythm as though I was blasting the song. I slowly walk down the hallway with my phone out, pretending to text someone, bored but distracted, when I'm actually stalling for one or both of them to come out of the classroom. I feel impatient and restless, having to consciously stop myself from bouncing my leg. 

Suddenly, as though someone set off some kind of alarm, I see Ángel damn near running out of the classroom, holding his notebooks and binders close to his chest. I scream at myself internally to not turn my head up or look behind me, to stay still, stay “cool.” Sure enough, I see Mark leaving the classroom too, in the same direction that Ángel went, the perfect image of satisfaction. 

I let out a breath of—I don’t know. Surprise? Exasperation? Frustration? Relief?

I poke my head into the classroom, hesitant. It's completely empty.  _ Where the fuck did the teacher go? _ Teachers are like lip balms: never there when you need them.

I want to go down the same hallway they did; weirdly enough, I really don’t feel like letting whatever this is go. I want to talk to Ángel, but I glance up at the clock and realize I'm already almost late to my next class. How long was I stalling for? I groan and head to my locker to get my things for my third period class, shaking my head. What the hell is up with me?

I haven't been able to get my mind off of what seemed to happen with Ángel back there.

It doesn't look like he's in any of my other classes, and I haven't seen him in the hallways at all for the rest of the day. Normally you can find a person you need to talk to or want to see during the passing periods in between classes, but Ángel's like a ghost. He's nowhere to be found. Also like a ghost, he won’t stop fucking haunting me. 

Lunchtime rolls around, and with it a newly Angel-induced headache. I put all my shit away in my locker, replacing it instead with a book, my phone and earbuds, and my paper lunch bag. I feel a strange sense of satisfaction fill me when the locker slams shut, and I almost feel happy as I head to the library. 

The library is actually a pretty cool place to spend lunchtime. One of the very, very few things that I like about this school is that they don't force you to spend lunchtime in the lunchroom. You can go outside and play sports or go to the library to study or go into any classrooms that have their doors open to do whatever it is that they’re offering. It's cool. Not a lot of high schools do that, and I’m actually grateful mine does.

Back when I was Finn's friend, we would all go out and play baseball or basketball outside. And I still would love to still be able to do that, but Finn's sluts hog all the sporting equipment, something I'd never really noticed until I stopped hanging around with them. Looking back on it, there’s a lot of things I didn’t realize until I stopped hanging around them. So now that I’m no longer a part of their little clique, I've been eating my lunch in the library. The lunchroom is loud and gross and weirdly overwhelming, and the library's pretty quiet. It’s chill, and it helps me relax if my day has been going bad. Besides, I doubt any of Finn's sluts have ever set foot in the place—knowledge is like kryptonite to them.

I walk into the library and take a seat at the table near the left corner. I'm surrounded by a ridiculous amount of non-fiction biology books that are probably used as horse tranquilizers, what with how heavy and impossible-to-read they are. I set my book down and carefully take my phone out of my pocket, opening the book and holding my phone behind it, using the book as a cover.

I just scroll through Instagram for a while and double-tap the photos I see of sneakers I wish I could buy, selfies and/or album promos from my favorite artists, and meaningless memes. None of them ever make me laugh anymore, after seeing them so many times, but they are still pretty funny. To be fair, it’s not like I laugh all that much lately. 

I hear someone enter the library and involuntarily look up, a built-in reflex. My eyes widen in surprise almost immediately, and the first thing I think is— _ yeah, he’s a ghost, alright. _ It's Ángel, wearing the same white earbuds and baggy St. Bibiana's sweater and facial expression that makes me think he wants to die. It’s a weird mix, no doubt about it, but it’s one that just makes me want to walk over to him and make him laugh, or something. 

_ Finn's sluts never come here, so now's probably the best chance to try and talk to Ángel about what happened. _ My thumb floats to the Home button, then the Power button on my phone as I slide it back into my pocket and put my earbuds away. Ángel has apparently decided to sit near the middle-region of the library, among the barely-cushioned wooden chairs they have over there. They're uncomfortable as hell to sit on, and my ass has never once felt okay after I sat in one of those. I am struck by the sudden realization that Angel might not be human after all. 

I realize suddenly that if I hadn't seen Ángel walk in, I would've completely missed him. It's not an easy place to notice a person—there are bookshelves on basically every side of that area that would block a person's view, and the silence is so crippling, furthered by the library’s own inhabitants, that you would think you’re alone. 

I clear my throat, as though he could hear me from this far away, and get up, striding over to him with determination. He's got those earbuds in again, of course, so he doesn't hear or notice me until I literally sit down across from him in one of the ass-destroying wooden chairs, smiling in a way that might be considered disconcerting. He looks up at me and blinks, seemingly surprised, before slowly taking his earbuds out.

"Hey," I tell him, smiling. "It's me, Alex, from the Valentine's dance."

"You never gave me your name," Ángel says bluntly.

I blink.  _ Oh, I didn't.  _ I guess I thought that since Mami had forced Ángel's name out of him, that I probably mentioned my own name too somewhere in there, but I guess not. "Oh, damn. Sorry about that." I smile. "Well, now you know?"

He gives me an awkward nod that feels like it's standing in the place of a smile. His eyes seem to want to stick to any surface other than my face, and I’m struck with the feeling that I’m talking to a wall. 

"So, um, can I ask you something?"

I ask him this question just as he looks like he's about to go back to reading whatever book he's in the middle of, more awkward than intended. The bookmark is caught between Ángel's pointer finger and his thumb, and he looks at me sharply, wary. He puts it back in the book and sets it down slowly. "Sure," Ángel responds after a moment, tone flat.

I put my elbows on the table and lean just a little closer. "So I saw you in my Spanish class today—"

Ángel sighs and rolls his eyes, but I continue. Hey, I live with Elena—you gotta know how to keep going despite being heavily discouraged. 

"—and it looked like Mark was making you uncomfortable. Are you okay?"

He looks into my eyes with an expression that is way too analytical for a few moments, making me feel strangely exposed. His eyes are big, brown, and piercing. They pin me to my seat and I’m not sure if I want to run away from them or maybe stare right back. "Yeah, I'm fine. Mark's just an asshole," he mutters, annoyance coating his tone. He looks away for a moment and then looks back to me, gaze even sharper than before. "Everyone is."

I nod my head, licking my chapped lips. "Yeah, I get that," I tell him, unsure of whether or not "everyone" includes me. I get the feeling it most definitely does, and I’m really not sure how I feel about that.

"Mm-hm." Ángel picks up his book, apparently deciding this conversation is over, and takes out the bookmark again, but I don’t let him enjoy his literature for much.

"What was he saying to you?" I ask seriously, aware I’m pestering, but I don’t really care at all.

Ángel looks like he's about to kill me as he puts the bookmark back in the book yet again, practically slamming it down on the table. "It was nothing. He was just forcing me to help him with his Spanish homework 'cause I'm Mexican. Threatening me if I didn't, and other stupid stuff like that." Ángel rolls his eyes in a way that makes me think of Mami when Schneider barges in. "I'm just sick of people saying stuff like that to me."

Oh. Well, of course. It’s not like the same hasn’t ever happened to me. I’ve never gotten bad grades, because Mami might kill me if I do, and Spanish has always been an A+ even when I’m half asleep and barely focused. It was just another part of people being ignorant pricks and my name being Alejandro. Besides, even my so-called friends always pushed me to let them copy my homework and give them the answers, no matter how annoyed I got.

I let out a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, I get that. I actually used to be friends with Mark and his crowd," I say, opting not to call them  _ Finn's sluts _ out loud like I do in my head. "They always asked me for answers and shit. I told them to Google it."

"That's what I was saying, too," Ángel says. "It's not that hard to look it up when you get home." Then, one last time, he takes the bookmark out and his attention completely shifts back to his book.

I feel like the conversation isn't done, though. There's something more I want to talk to him about. Even if I feel like he might actually punch me if I interrupt him again. "Um... I don't wanna bother you, but are you  _ sure  _ you're okay?"

Ángel looks back up at me, gaze strangely blank and it makes me swallow. This time he doesn't close or put his book down. "Yeah. Everything's fine. Mark and Finn and all those other guys are all just talk. They're just noise." Ángel shrugs, looking aside for a moment. "It's fine. It's over now, anyway."

"You're sure?"

This time, Ángel puts his book down, not bothering to even touch the bookmark. I've clearly pestered him, and I can see how tense his jaw is even from here. He’s glaring. 

"Why are you asking me so many questions?"

I blink in surprise.  _ Oh, wow. He's mad. _ "I..." I haven’t been caught off guard like this in a long, long time, and I feel strangely nervous, knocked off-kilter. "Nothing, I just wanted to make sure that...you were okay."

He looks at me, confused and absolutely rattled, as if I'm an alien. It makes my chest ache for a moment before I forget it.

I shrug my shoulders, then put my hands up like I'm being pulled over, smiling somewhat helplessly. "I dunno how to tell you it's not a bad idea to care about other human beings," I say to him sagely.

He stares at me for a little while longer, then his shoulders drop as he sighs. Or is it more of an exhale? “Okay. Sorry. It’s been a rough day.”

I shrug, glad he’s deciding to spare my life instead of brutally murdering me with those death glares. “It’s cool. Everyone has rough days.”

I might have just imagined it, but I would swear on my new Jordans that I hear him mutter, “Yeah,  _ sure  _ they do.”


	6. The Hallways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a commotion in the hallways of St Bibiana's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> Gab and I realized a while ago that our timeline relating to the characters' ages was a little fucked, so we want to make something clear: Alex is 15 at the moment. He was 15 at Chapter 1, and he'll be 15 until his birthday comes. Since we have yet to see Alex's birthday celebrated in canon, we've taken a guess, and for the sake of the fanfic, his birthday will be on July 9th--we chose that date because that's when Marcel Ruiz, who portrays him, was born.
> 
> So if there was any mention of Alex being 16 in the previous five chapters, we're sorry--please let us know if there are any in a comment so we can go in and correct that.
> 
> Also, we're starting a playlist for TAWFFH! The playlist will be filled with songs that are mentioned or referenced in the story, or songs that reminds me or Gab about the characters. So in case you're curious about what Alex and Angel and everyone else is listening to, the link is right [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/28leyqPWHKc3xjSyizebXn?si=axldl5Y3T5-B1t6TdouuhQ)
> 
> Okay, enough author's notes. Enjoy the fic.

**_The Hallways: Alex Alvarez_ **

It’s no secret that it physically pains me to admit I was wrong about something, be it out loud or in the deepest, darkest corner of my mind. But I was raised right, so I have no choice other than to say I was wrong and Mami was right: there is a  _ lot _ more to Ángel than he lets on. Not that I’m going to tell her that, of course.

It’s been about three weeks since that moment in the Spanish class, that lunch in the library where I finally talked to him again. He’s let his guard down just a little bit—or at least, I like to think he has. We’ve been hanging out every day in the library for lunch, forgoing the silence the place is supposed to foster in favor of talking about anything that comes to our minds. Well, actually, anything that comes to  _ my _ mind, because he still doesn’t start conversations, much less share random thoughts. But he keeps them going, which is a lot more than what he was doing a while ago. It’s progress.

The day after I talked to him in the library for the first time, I almost decided against going back to see if he was there. I knew he could probably use a friend—God knows that bullies don't just strike once and then never again, because where would be the fun in that?—but I also knew that alone time is very important for a person who's done with stupid people's bullshit. I, of all people, would know.

Regardless, I steeled my nerves and tried my luck, and I'm glad I did.

I went back to the library, and for the first week, I would still have to wave my hand in his face or tap his shoulder to get his attention. He refused to take his earbuds off, and I was often left talking with a metaphorical brick wall. It wasn’t exactly encouraging, but I was undeterred in my quest, despite laying awake at night, horrified to realize I had turned into Elena.

By the second week, he began taking out one earbud when I sat down in front of him, and actually  _ pausing his music _ so he could talk to me. The first time it happened I actually stopped talking mid-sentence and my face must’ve been something else, because to this day I’m still not sure if Ángel’s face could be described as amused or freaked out. Point is, the gesture was flattering, in the weirdest possible way. The fact that he would show basic common courtesy just for me really shouldn’t be all that groundbreaking, but I knew it wasn't something he did very often, so mind-blowing was about right.

Later during that wonderful and transformative week, Ángel and I landed on the subject of music in-between my endless rambling and his quieter additions. The thing is, we have very,  _ very _ different tastes.

We were sitting across from each other at a table, blissfully far away from the tables with the ass-destroying wooden chairs, because fuck no. I was trying to finish my math homework so I wouldn’t have to do it once I got home, and Ángel was reading a book—no surprise there—with one earbud in. Lately, we had developed some sort of unspoken system. If he let one of his earbuds out, it meant we were game and I had green light for talking; whether he would contribute to the conversation or not was still a gamble, but I took what I could get. If he left both in, however, it meant his day had been particularly shitty and while he didn’t mind my company, he might try to incinerate me with his eyes if I started babbling.

Since one earbud was out, signifying my freedom of speech, I could hear faint audio coming from the speaker, getting louder or softer whenever he shifted and the earbud swung this way or that.

My eyebrows furrowed. “Do you listen to music while you read?” I always found it impossible to do that; I either got distracted by the lyrics or caught up in the beat of a song, and then I’d lose track of whatever it was I was reading and it would all just become a colorful mess in my brain. Doing homework like math that required looking at numbers and nothing more to even understand it?  _ That  _ I could do with music in the background, so long as the equations weren’t longer than Elena’s moustache. But  _ reading _ ? I wish. 

Ángel looked up at me. “Sometimes.”

“But how? Don’t you get distracted?”

I was aware I was speaking like he was the reincarnation of Albert Einstein or something, but right this moment, he might as well be. 

He shrugged. “Sometimes. But I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world.” He shrugged as the world’s smallest grin—if you could even call it a grin—crawled upon his face. “Music is good.”

I smiled at his soft tone. “So what kind of music do you listen to?”

He opened his mouth, looking almost excited, then closed it as his grin faded. Then he hesitated, looking down at his book. “All kinds, pretty much, except for rap and country.”

I frowned. “Really? You don’t like rap?”

Then Ángel frowned too, a look of mild horror growing in his eyes. “Oh, don’t tell me you do. At least agree with me about country music.”

“I  _ do _ agree with you about country music, that shit’s unbearable,” I said, absolutely matter-of-fact. Ángel chuckled, seeming relieved. “But rap is pretty good.”

Ángel scrunched up his face, equal parts thoughtful and disgust. “ _ Some _ rap is good. Very little of it. Like, I-can-count-it-on-one-hand kind of little. But I could totally live without it.”

I slumped in my seat, feeling dejected. “What is it about rap you don’t like?”

Ángel thought about my question for a moment. “I dunno. What is it about country you don’t like?”

“It’s obnoxious,” I began, “and it all sounds exactly the same—”

“There!” Ángel said. “That. That’s exactly my problem with some music. It all sounds the same. Country music is exclusively acoustic guitars and rednecks playing the same four chords and mumbling about working on farms and drinking to forget. Then there’s bro-country and—yeah, no, thank you,” Ángel said in a completely unfaltering and serious monotone that made me laugh into my arm, lest we get called out for being noisy. “So whatever you think when you hear country is probably whatever I think when I hear rap.”

I blinked, impressed. “Damn. You must really hate rap music then.”

_ “Yeah.” _ Ángel nodded vehemently as he returned to his book for the time it took me to turn his words around in my head.

“And you wouldn’t be willing to try listening to some of my favorite rap songs, just to see what you think?” I asked him tentatively, hopefully, breaking the silence.

Ángel blinked at me. “What about me in the past two weeks you’ve been hanging out with me has led you to believe that I like trying new things?” he responded bluntly, somewhat disbelieving.

I nodded, grimacing. “Good point.”

Ángel looked like he was going to go back to reading for a moment, only to hesitate and ultimately put his bookmark inside the book with a sigh and set it aside. “Is rap all you listen to?”

“I think that if a person only listens to one genre their whole life, there’s something wrong with them,” I said with complete seriousness. “No, I also like EDM, Latino, reggaeton, just most music you can dance to in general…” I trailed off when I noticed Ángel’s sickened expression. “You don’t like those either?”

He answered with a question, looking wary. “What kind of Latino music?”

I thought about the artists that Elena has said I stan, trying to piece together some sort of coherent pattern or list, before starting to list them off thoughtfully, sounding unsure half the time. “Bad Bunny, Maluma, Daddy Yankee…”

“Oh.” Ángel’s expression told me he still didn’t agree with me, and that he was seriously questioning why the hell he was even associated with me. “No.”

I chuckled, crossing my arms and leaning back in my seat. I was ready for this challenge. “Okay, then, so who are the artists  _ you _ listen to?”

Ángel thought for a moment, biting his lip. That was a habit of his, when he was thinking about something particularly hard, or at least that’s the conclusion I came to after watching it come up when he was doing homework. “I don’t listen to specific artists as much as just certain genres. I find most music through YouTube, anyway.”

I got the feeling he wasn’t eager to tell me the full story. Like maybe he was ashamed of his music taste or something, which was ridiculous, considering he looked at me like I was a  _ thing  _ after hearing about my own. “Y’know, I’m not gonna make fun of you for what you listen to. Like what you like.”

I saw Ángel gulp, clearing his throat and looking at one of the bookshelves like it was enormously interesting. “I didn’t think you would.” He shrugged. “I just tend to like specific songs instead of specific artists.”

“Alright then. So what are your favorite songs?”

Ángel thought for a moment.  _ “‘Falling in Love With a Memory’  _ by Monarchy,” he said.

I blinked. “I’ve never heard of the song or the artist.”

Ángel grinned. “Didn’t think you had. Their songs have like, five thousand views on YouTube. Not a lot of people listen to them.” He took out his phone from his pocket, seemingly to open his music app. Then he held out the earbud that wasn’t in his ear, an offering that felt way too valuable to let it pass. “You wanna listen?”

I smiled as I took a seat next to him instead of across from him, taking the earbud cheerfully. “Only if you promise to try out my music, too.”

I saw him roll his eyes out of the corner of my eyes, but he only grumbled a bit. “Alright.”

To my surprise, I loved the song. I didn’t think it was going to be that good. I was expecting just okay. But I loved it and I checked out some of their other music once I got home, going to bed with my earbuds jammed in and a playlist of Monarchy’s songs lulling me to a somewhat decent sleep. I don’t think Ángel did the same with my music, though.

It's lunchtime again, and it’s rote to head to the library, headphones in and hands in my pocket. There’s a slight smile on my face for the first time in a while now that I have something to look forward to in school, even if that something is a guy that speaks less than Elena at church. My smile disappears as soon as my music suddenly stops.

My eyebrows furrow and I frown, snatching my phone out of my pocket. I’m checking the Bluetooth settings, scrolling furiously, just as my earbuds beep. “Please recharge headset,” the robotic voice inside the earbuds says to me, crushing my tiny bundle of joy. “Low battery.” Then it beeps again, leaving me to listen to nothing but the sounds of my classmates. Ugh.

I roll my eyes and take out my earbuds, putting them in their case and then back in my pocket. I must’ve forgotten to charge them last night, since I actually fell asleep quickly. Goddammit. 

I keep walking towards the library, deciding I won’t be needing my earbuds for the next twenty minutes or so while I hang with Ángel anyway. I’ll be miserable after that, when I’ll have to walk the hallways and endure the sounds of everyone’s voices, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I hear a loud, sudden noise come from the far end of this hallway, startling me enough to make me flinch. This hallway branches out into three more hallways, each and every single one lined with lockers. It kind of sounded like someone slammed their locker door closed, but at the same time, it wasn’t the familiar sound of metal banging against metal. It wasn’t the sound of metal banging on  _ something else _ .  _ Maybe it’s a fight. _

Fights and stuff like that aren’t very common at St. Bibiana’s. It’s a Catholic school, after all and nuns are patrolling the halls all the time—or, between classes, at least—so when a kid punches another kid, or someone yells at someone else, people will notice and it will get shut down pretty quickly before anyone can get hurt. That’s why whenever someone shows up to school with a bruise or a scrape or some other injury, you’ll never hear them say they got into a fight in the middle of school. It just doesn’t happen.

Sometimes a kid will threaten to show up at another kid’s house, though, and the teachers and staff here can’t do shit about that. In the end, no system is infallible.

Maybe it’s just my train of thought distracting me or maybe my ears are defective after always ignoring the warning my phone gives me whenever I put the volume on too high, but I don’t hear any more noises coming from the end of the hallway. Someone probably  _ did  _ close their locker super hard.  _ Of course it wasn’t a fight.  _ I let the concern go as I enter into the library, letting the worthless information fade from my mind. 

I immediately head for the far end of the library, by all the boring biology books, where Ángel would be right at home. There, cleverly hidden amongst all the thick, brick-like volumes that could genuinely be used as murder weapons, lays an oasis with better, more comfortable seats that comes at the comparatively small price of being surrounded by science. I'd convinced Ángel to move over here during the first week of our acquaintance, since those wooden chairs make my ass so numb I kind of want to whine. We've been sitting here ever since, and life is very, very good.

I pause when I see he isn’t here, and neither is his bag or his newest book.  _ Huh. _ Weird. He’s always been here before me, as though he were a permanent fixture in the environment, and it’s not like he’d rather be anywhere else. He could just be in the bathroom, or he got held up by a teacher, or something like that.

I check my phone. Lunchtime is almost halfway done already, and by now he would be nose-deep in a book, the picture-perfect image of the isolated bookworm.  _ Who spends this much time in the bathroom, anyway? _ I set my stuff down at the table and leave the library, heading for the nearest boys’ bathroom, hoping and praying that no one’s at the urinals, because it would look way too weird if I just stuck my head into the boys’ bathroom for two seconds and then left. 

The thought almost makes me turn back.  _ If there is someone there, you can just go into one of the stalls and wait until they leave. Then it’s not weird.  _ It’s not like I was going to go, “‘Sup,” and nod my head at them like we were pals or anything, even if there was someone there, so it should be fine.

But when I do get to the boys’ bathroom, I see it’s empty. No one using the stalls, no one at the urinals. It’s a ghost town. I frown and turn back, unsure as to where I should go next. Ángel legitimately avoids every other site at this school like they hold a deadly plague whenever he can help it, so I have no clue where he could be if the library isn’t it.

I decide to text Ángel, like a normal human being, instead of continuing to burn through my, according to Elena, limited brain cells. I open Snapchat and double-tap his name in my friend’s list, quickly sending him a blurry picture of the floor. I don’t particularly care about the photo, because it’s the caption that’s important: “where are u?”

Once it’s sent, I refresh the app a few times, bouncing my leg energetically, but he’s leaving me on Delivered. I grunt and turn back to the library. Lunch is almost over now, anyways, so I should just get my stuff and head to class before I get scolded for being late or something equally annoying. I’ll just have to text Ángel later, and find out where he had been. Maybe he found another spot?

The trip back to the library goes by fast and most everything is quiet, thankfully for me. Which is also why, as I reach to open the library doors, I hear that same sound from earlier again, this time accompanied by a loud cry of pain, and I know now that it’s definitely _not_ someone slamming their locker closed.

I hate admitting that I’m wrong, but sometimes, I really hate being right.

My mind immediately goes to Ángel, because Mami says intuition is a thing and according to Abuelita, Latino intuition is the shit. I have no real proof that it’s him except for, “Where else would he be?” but it’s enough for my legs to carry me from the library down to the hallway, especially when I remember his words when we were talking about music. Change and Ángel are not friends, and I don’t think that changed in less than ten days.

When I finally get to my destination, swallowing thickly, I freeze.

Latino intuition  _ is  _ the shit.

Finn, Mark, and Ángel are in the hallway where the sound came from together, and I can tell this is definitely not a friendly gathering. I see the fear written across Ángel’s face, unusually pale, and that smug, stupid, disgusting smile on Finn’s face that he gets when he knows he’s intimidated someone. That look when he knows he’s on top and everyone is below, the one I once punched him for. All of Ángel’s stuff—his precious books and notebooks and pens and everything else a student carries with them, everything Ángel is so ordered and careful with—lay scattered across the floor a fair distance away from him, pages getting dirty on the ground and pens rolling with a gentle sound. He’s slowly stepping farther and farther away from Finn and Mark, pressing his own back up against the lockers, teeth buried firmly in his lip.  _ So the lip thing isn’t about concentration after all.  _

Finn laughs and then takes one large step towards him suddenly, as if he’s about to pounce on him. Ángel lets out a little yelp in shock and flinches violently against the lockers, forearms flying up to protect his face as though he’s about to be punched or slapped. I think I might be the one who feels he got hit, though.

“What the fuck are you doing to him?” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can bother to try not to cuss or make my voice quieter—anyone walking around in the hallways right now will definitely hear me.

But after seeing Ángel so terrified like this, and after having to put up with my whole entire goddamn family being so fucking in love for a year, and breaking up with a girl every Friday only to start dating a new one every Monday, I have literally no shits to give. Whatever happens, happens. I can get sent to the Principal’s office and they can call Mami for all I care. Right now, I just need Ángel to be okay and for the other two sluts to fuck off before I make them.

Finn looks up and sees me. I would bet my life that I see fear flash across both his and Mark’s faces—I see they, wisely, haven’t forgotten about the time I punched one of their friends in the face right in front of them—just before they laugh haughtily and turn back to Ángel. “What, your  _ boyfriend’s  _ come to rescue you?”

I pause for the slightest of moments. There’s something in the way Finn’s said the word “boyfriend” that almost scares me, that makes my hairs stand on end and goosebumps run their way through my skin. I know Finn doesn’t exactly take kindly to the queer and trans crowd—enough time spent around him talking about lesbians as if they only exist to satisfy his masturbatory fantasies was enough to learn that very well—so if Finn and Mark are here bullying and intimidating Ángel because he’s—

Well, that wouldn’t surprise me at all. And that’s really fucking sad.

And it’s so fucked up it makes me uncontrollably mad.

“He’s not my boyfriend, though he should be so lucky,” I say, stalking closer to Finn and Mark until I’m the only thing within their line of sight. Until they have no one to speak to but me, until they can see nothing by my fists stuffed in my pockets so I don’t end up giving both of them matching shiners. “What, are you taking out your problems on other people again?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Finn snaps, face nothing short of a snarl. Good, I want him mad, I want him  _ seething  _ and I want him  _ gone _ . 

“Oh, come on, you do it all the time,” I say it casually, almost friendly, but my tone doesn’t match my scowl. “And of course, I get why. I’d be sad too if the only thing that I could ever fuck was my fist.”

Finn opens his mouth probably to retort with some bullshit about how much action he gets, but I cut him off before he can get even word in. Either way, I know Elena had more game before she got together with Syd than he does on a regular basis. “Or is it your mommy not giving you enough attention again? Is she off sleeping with your soon-to-be-ninth-stepdad?”

The emotion on Finn’s face instantly disappears, and some part of me finds it within itself to feel guilty.  _ Maybe I went a bit overboard. _ I don’t like Finn’s shitty home situation and I do feel bad his mom is more interested in a dick than in her son, but then again, it looked like Finn and Mark were hurting Ángel, so I very quickly squash down whatever part of me feels bad about what I said, and suddenly I’m not sorry at all. The expression on my face never falters, anger and warning and challenge all tied into one hellish scowl that neither of them could ever hope to match. I keep staring him down, the three of us now silent, since I don’t think any of us have something that could match up to  _ that _ .

Eventually, Finn shows me his middle finger, jaw clenched so tight it must hurt. “C’mon, Mark, let’s get the hell out of here.” He doesn’t leave without taking one last scathing look at Ángel, who remains frozen in place. 

Mark points at him and says, “We’ll come back for you later,” like he’s a gangster or something. Ángel winces at Mark’s words, somehow managing to bite his lip harder. And then they’re gone.

I exhale, tension seeping out of my body with the shaky breath, and then reluctantly look down at my feet. The floor’s a mess, and not necessarily the good kind; Ángel’s school supplies are scattered everywhere, papers looking crumpled and books laying in a way that would make Elena cry. I start to pick them up for him, carefully putting the pens and pencils back in the pouch they came from, and picking up the papers that fell out of his binders. Ángel still isn’t moving, and I don’t expect him to start anytime soon.

When I’ve finished gathering all his stuff, dusting off books and trying to straighten out crumpled papers, I gently place it all in his lap to him in an orderly pile and sit down on the floor next to him. 

“Are you okay?” I try to make my voice gentle, like Mami when Elena crumbles or when I don’t want to admit something happened, soothing. I hope I succeed. 

Ángel visibly swallows before nodding stiffly.

“Are you  _ sure?” _

Ángel blinks and doesn’t do anything else. I take that as a no.

“What were they doing to you?” I ask him. I keep my voice as quiet and calm as possible; it’s a miracle no teachers or staff heard us and came in here to give us all detention or some shit like that. But hey, I’m not complaining.

“Why did you come and help me?” he responds, his voice just as quiet as mine, but his tone almost accusatory. As though I had done something wrong, as though he didn’t think anyone would think to help.

So, clearly, his case of chronic cynicism is nowhere near cured.

I blink. I could just fall back on the “because you’re my friend,” argument, but it’s so sappy and overused that I know that it’s not the answer Ángel’s looking for. That sort of answer would make him roll his eyes. “I heard sounds coming from over here—”

“What kind of sounds?”

“...Like someone slammed their locker shut or something. I heard the same sound twice and it messed with me.” I try to catch Ángel’s eyes, maybe see what he’s feeling, but he keeps his vision steadfastly glued on the floor, refusing to look at me. “But that’s not what happened, right?”

Ángel finally looks up at me, lips pursed and eyes narrowed slightly. It’s similar to the look of annoyance I’m somewhat used to seeing on his face, except this one is far more tense, his whole face scrunched up. It makes my stomach turn in a way that can’t be anything good. Then he sighs and rolls his eyes, and I think that that’s a bit better. “If I tell you what happened, can you just not tell anyone else?”

It’s not like I have anyone else to tell, unless we start counting inanimate objects and that would just be sad. “Sure, of course.” I wonder why he cares so much about keeping it a secret. Then I think about that once someone told me to go back to a country I’ve never even seen and everything that happened afterwards, and I think that maybe I do get it.

Ángel lets out a long, loud sigh before finally talking. It’s astonishing how he manages to sound irritated and done with everyone’s shit even when he’s three shades paler than he should be. “This is the hallway where my locker is.” He points to a locker on the other side of the hallway, to a nondescript locker that’s closed, but without a lock. “That’s my locker. And Finn and Mark said they’d come find me at my locker and… yeah. Do this to me.”

“ _ Why? _ ” I pack as much confusion and bewilderment into a single word as I possibly can. Ángel couldn’t have done anything to them first. He’s the shyest person I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine a scenario where Ángel said the first word, even if he can be one hell of a little shit. 

Ángel glances at me and then looks back down at the floor. “They hate me ‘cause I…”

He trails off, leaving his sentence unfinished. “‘Cause you’re what?” I press on, trying not to sound impatient, certain my whole face is the dictionary definition of eager.

“‘Cause I don’t like girls.”

I blink.  _ Oh. _ It really  _ is _ what I thought. Somehow, I still manage to feel disappointed in those guys. And then I feel stupid for even having slight hopes to begin with. And then I think that this whole situation is ridiculous, and I kind of want to borrow Ángel’s metaphorical Done With Your Shit badge.

“Like, you mean you’re gay?”

He winces at the word “gay” the way Elena winces at someone calling Syd a “she”, full-bodied and with a nice grimace to top it off, and then he nods, and I wonder why. It’s not like “gay” is a dirty word—and even if it were, Ángel swears like a sailor and there’s no stopping that. 

A laugh almost escapes me, but I stop it before it comes out and Ángel thinks I’m being insensitive, or that I’m making fun of him. If I made him think that, I’d have to punch myself for being an idiot and I really don’t feel like doing that right now. Or, like, preferably ever. “That’s  _ it? _ That’s all?”

He looks at me with a frown, probably picking up on the disbelief dripping from my tone. “What?”

“ _ That’s _ the  _ only reason  _ why Finn and his sluts hate you so much?”

Ángel pauses and takes longer than he should to respond. “It’s the only reason they’ve given me.”

Faintly, I come to the conclusion that I should have given them a nice, matching pair of shiners for them to wear as a symbol of their friendship, cemented solely on their shittiness, after all. 

I facepalm hard enough to make my skin itch. “Oh my God, dude…” This time I can’t stop myself from laughing. “Finn’s really hit a new low, the poor bastard.”

Ángel just continues to stare at me with a very confused, very weird expression. It’s like he’s an owl, and it’s both very funny and very sad. 

“I’m not laughing at you, dude. I used to be Finn’s best friend.” And isn’t that painful to say. It’s like saying you have never seen Star Wars. And now I feel even more ashamed, because I really have turned into Elena. “I knew he was a homophobe but I didn’t think he’d come and  _ find _ gay people to beat up. Like, are you shitting me? He’s got nothing better to do? Now I get why he’s taller than his grades.”

“So… you’re okay with this?”  Ángel says it hesitantly, like he’s scared to hope, and it makes me understand why Elena is angry all the time a tiny bit better. Because nobody should sound that small and that scared just because they like someone of their same sex.

“Yeah!” I tell him as I get up, giving him the same smile I put on when I first approached him at the library. “Who cares who the hell you kiss as long as you’re happy? It’s no one’s damn business.” I hold out my hand to him, shrugging.

He looks at it for a moment, then his gaze flickers to my face, and then he takes it and stands back up. His hand is sweaty but it isn’t shaky, and take that as both a win and a good sign. I pick up his stuff for him and put it in his hands again, taking in his surprised eyes and his small, thankful nod. Then the bell, lifelong enemy of mine, rings.

I start to walk with him, hands in my pockets, until I realize why my hands are empty and therefore able to be in my pockets. Maybe Ángel isn’t the only sailor here. “I left my stuff in the library.”

“Oh,” is the only thing he responds with. Easy to read and helpful as always, this guy. 

I raise an eyebrow, ignoring his flat tone. “You sure you’re gonna be okay?”

Ángel just nods and starts walking off to his next class without looking back, leaving me with only a faint, “Yeah, thanks.”

As I head back to the library to get my stuff, sweaty hands in my pockets, I wonder if he was telling me the truth. If he was really going to be okay or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No offense intended to country music lovers, lol.


	7. Midnight Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex lies awake at midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! We hope you're all doing well and taking care of yourselves. <3
> 
> Here's some one-in-the-morning internal monologue for ya. This chapter is completely devoid of dialogue, save for some text messages near the middle. But of course, that depends on whether or not you consider texting to be equal to dialogue.
> 
> Also, because this chapter's a lot longer than our usual, weighing in at just shy of 7,000 words, we're going to take roughly three weeks for the next update (though it _is_ possible that we'll update earlier!). Expect Chapter 8 to drop on June 6! Thanks so much for your patience. :)
> 
> We really hope you love this chapter as much as we did and we hope you stick around! To be vague, some Elena/Syd shenanigans are coming up real soon. ;)
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING:** Mentions/discussion of domestic abuse; not incredibly graphic but can be difficult to read.

**_Midnight Thoughts: Alex Alvarez_ **

My phone’s clock hits the AM hours, and I groan, wondering what the hell I did in my past life to deserve this. 

I _must_ have done something, because it is not fair—nor is it in any way normal—for me to be so exhausted I could literally drop, only for my precious sleeping hours to turn into me tossing, turning, and growling until three in the morning. If I’m lucky. Which I rarely am, but that’s whole ‘nother can of worms, and one I’d like to keep tightly shut and preferably out of sight, thank you very much.

My personal poltergeist seems hellbent on stealing my attention at any and all times, such as when I’m supposed to be animatedly chatting it up with my man, Morpheus. Said poltergeist being, of course, none other than my newest—very cat-like, might I add—friend, Ángel. To be more precise, I can’t stop thinking about the way he put his arms up to protect himself when Finn pounced at him, like he was _certain_ Finn was going to hurt him. Once more, it reminded me of a cat. A stray cat that had lived on the streets long enough to respond to any kind of danger in the same way, because that’s the only reason it had even survived long enough to learn how to run away.

It wasn’t a nice comparison in the least.

Somehow, this didn’t occur to me in the moment, but the way that Finn was glowering at Ángel brought back memories. Faint, blurry ones, but poignant all the same. Finn was staring at Ángel as though he was ready to beat him bloody and senseless, and Ángel was looking up at him like he was certain my piece of shit of an ex-best friend was totally capable of doing so. I know better, and some part of Ángel should, too, but—he didn’t look like he did. He looked like he was staring death in the face, and he thought he was going to lose the battle and kick the bucket any second. He looked fucking petrified, and right now, all it makes me think of is the image I have of Mami from ten years ago, when she was still married to my dad.

I never really talk about Papi, or at least, I’ve decided never to bring him up. If he comes up, I’m only too happy to talk about him and engage, but since the wedding, I’m careful never to be the one to actually start the conversation. After Elena’s quinces, it never seemed to lead anywhere good, and afterwards, it only ever ended in quiet laughter that trailed off into awkward silence. All of it was something I’d rather avoid, and all I had to do was keep my mouth shut. It was a very easy, unspoken compromise, and it kept the peace well enough, so why not? 

These days, Papi was a man happily married to his second wife Nicole, the Made In China version of my mother, who was doing his best to be a better man to her than he was to all of us. It was good to know he was getting help, relieving to be assured that he really had changed, but that didn’t mean the person he was now had suddenly erased all his past—numerous and grievous—fuck ups. Elena would probably be better at putting even a third of any of this into words, as shown when she made a speech packing almost three years of angst, frustration and broken trust into one or two minutes. But that wasn’t the man I remembered, no. To me, it wasn’t about the most important date on a calendar being ruined because his mind was more narrow than our kitchen window, though I made sure to give him a lot of shit for it. He deserved it.

It also wasn’t about the months of radio silence, the lying, the sneaking around and all the shit I enabled and contributed to, because it was forgiven but certainly not forgotten. Both my part in it and his would always be a sore spot, a thing that could only be followed by silence and grim faces, uncomfortable squirming. It wasn’t even about the fact that we weren’t enough, but Nicole seems to be. I don’t blame her, and I don’t think I blame him, either, because I like her and I will always want him happy, but…

But. Period. 

Silence.

It was about the fact that the father I knew before he became a twice-a-year fixture in my life was nothing short of an eyesore, and could be used as nothing but a bad example. And nightmare fuel, maybe, but that was between the pillow and I.

Victor Alvarez was a kind man who brought laughter to those around him, or so I’m told. I guess I’ve seen that first-hand, now that he’s better, although now I can’t help but second-guess. But, first and foremost in my murky memories, he was a war veteran that became an alcoholic in a matter of weeks after he came back from the military. I was barely in elementary school at the time, so things blend together like a tye-dye, but I remember enough to know I sort of wish I didn’t. Back then, it was pretty much a daily occurence to come home and find Mami sitting on the coach in some kind of catatonic state, eyes wide and horrified. And I’d gotten used to having to avoid my dad whenever I saw a bottle in his hands, or if I was able to smell the _****__cervezas_ [11]he’d been downing. I learned that lesson quick, for everyone’s sake.

Then there was that one night that traumatized Elena and I forever, not that we have ever discussed it. Another compromise of sorts. I had been crying like a baby—though I guess that’s because I _was_ one _—_ and Elena held onto me tighter than she ever has since, wrapping me up in her bony arms and burying the both of us in blankets, as though we could pretend nothing was happening so long as we stayed in our little, fragile cocoon. Our pillows were pressed over our heads, another weak buffer to try to drown the noise, and I remember she was crying, too, but she tried to hide it, tried to soothe me. For my sake, for the baby brother’s sake. All I could do was hide, cling onto her and cry.

Eventually, the noises died down. The change was almost baffling. We didn’t hear beer bottle shattering, or the echo of Papi’s hand hitting Mami, nor the way Mami screamed whenever Papi would try to hit her. It went dead silent, and I think that was scarier, somehow, because before at least we knew what was happening, and now not knowing was killing me. If we held our breaths and listened closely enough, stiffening up so we would stop shaking and shifting, we could hear the sound of our mom’s breathing.

I don’t know why I thought it was Mami’s breathing. I guess I just knew, by some weird mother-son instinct. Or maybe it was because her breathing was faster than Papi’s, always, but much more shallow, as though she were constantly on edge. He always sounded somewhere between breathless and half-asleep.

That’s when the door opened and we both felt the breath be knocked out of us as we saw our father’s silhouette stagger into the bedroom. If Elena’s heartbeat was beating half as mine, then she must’ve thought she was having a heart attack. The room immediately started reeking of _cervezas,_ the thick scent of fermentation and rot, like overripe fruit and honey gone bad. Elena put her hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t wail out loud, though I’m pretty sure I was so breathless I wouldn’t have been able to make a sound.

But instead of hitting us, a constant fear despite the occurrences of it happening being few and far between, or yelling at us like I’d actually expected—he only kneeled down by Elena’s bed. His face was close to the both of ours, his breaths heavy and carrying the bittersweet smell of alcohol, as his voice came out a hoarse, slurred whisper. I don't remember exactly what he said, though whether that's because I don't want to or because I am incapable of doing so is up for debate. But I do know it was a goodbye, and that is one neither of us wanted nor understood. 

Later, we did understand. And by then, I started being grateful for the blank, muddled space where his words used to be.

It was the worst period of my life by far, despite me being too young to even remember most of it. Worse than the time I was grounded for four months for vaping weed. Worse than when I was thirteen and it seemed like everyone was suddenly racist. Worse than when Elena told us all about how she and Syd had been harassed by those perverts on the bus, and I realized that I was just as bad as them. My memories are watercolors, but I know nothing will ever measure up to what that was.

Nothing.

It horrifies me to think of Ángel like that. When he flinched and cowered and cried out in pain—that choked, _small_ noise I’d heard from the other side of the hallway—it reminds me too much of the stifling funhouse our home was back then. And now for some reason, as I lie awake in my bed here at midnight, sinking deeper and deeper into my mattress and my thoughts, all I can think about is _why_ he reacted that way. I wonder if Ángel had a childhood like mine, messed up and yet not quite. Maybe his watercolor is permanent ink, insistent and terrifying, because the painting took longer to be made and the artist was more violent. Maybe he had more nights of crying, and trying to drown out screams and things breaking and the sickening sound of flesh hitting flesh.

_Maybe his hell is ongoing._

The thought makes me choke on my own spit, shivers running up and down my skin. I shoot up in bed and cough as quietly as I can, one, two, three times before I clear my throat. When I went to bed two hours ago, the room was chilly, cool enough for me to wear a hoodie to bed and wrap myself up in my blanket like a burrito. Now I feel like the heat is fucking suffocating me, sweat swamping my skin so quickly I feel like I’ve stepped into a freaking sauna. I pull my shirt and hoodie off in one move, throwing the rumpled fabric across the room, and kick my blankets away until they fall off the bed. They’re not helping, and if I spend another moment around them, I might actually scream.

Ángel’s reaction was way too… _severe_ for what the situation called for. I mean, I know Finn. Sure, I guess he might look scary and he might sometimes actually manage to hit you right where it hurts, but he’s all bark and no bite. When Mark said, “We’ll come back for you later,” the only reason I didn’t snort was because I was too fucking pissed; otherwise, I would’ve told him straight up that I knew he was bullshitting. He just wanted to _appear_ tough, just like every other bully out there. Unlike most bullies out there, though, he’s actually a huge pussy (Elena would yell at me for saying that word, but I don’t really care at this moment, considering I sort of can’t breathe and I definitely can’t sleep and the only thing I _can_ do, which is think, is the one thing I would really like to stop doing right about _now)._

But it’s Finn’s absolute lack of balls that makes Ángel’s reaction so concerning. I mean, sure, I didn’t really see what happened between the three of them, and Ángel doesn’t know them half as well as I do, but Ángel looked scared for his _life,_ and that makes my stomach twist with the implications. Because the only way I can make sense of his pale face, and his jerky movements, and how small he looked when we parted ways, is that he was thinking, _fuck, not again._

I swallow, feeling a lump in my throat that makes everything difficult, and my chest is so tight my breaths are coming fast. Too fast. Fast enough to make me curl in on myself and clench my fists until my knuckles ache, because my gasps are soundless but it feels so shitty. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ I can’t help but wonder if he’s been in that position before, accosted out of nowhere without asking for it, without doing anything. Getting beaten up for no reason, watching as all the things he cherishes so much as thrown about and stomped on. Being taunted, intimidated, insulted. And his only crime? Liking boys. _Which isn’t even a fucking crime._

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

My chest hurts from how quickly my heart is beating, fast enough to scare me, and I have repeated the words so many times I half-expect them to lose meaning but for once luck must be on my side, because they don’t. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ I fall back on my mattress and take a deep breath, slowly unclenching my fists before clenching them again. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ Clench, unclench. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ Curl, unfurl, breathe, do it again.

Do it again, again, again. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

I’m getting angry again. At Finn. At Papi. At the stained glass that is my memory. At everyone who goes out of their way to find gay people to beat up. At every dad who’s ever chosen a beer instead of his kids. I want to go and beat someone up now, as if that would help fix everything wrong with the world. As if that would mean my sister and Syd could go out without even a moment of fear, and Mami wouldn’t get treated like garbage by an ungrateful patient, and nobody would yell racist stuff at me and Abuelita just for kicks. I just want to punch something, _someone_ until my knuckles are as black and blue as my human sandbag. But I can’t.

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

If there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s that anger is a gross emotion and I don’t like it. And even if anger feels better than...everything else, it’s not something I’m allowed to take out on everyone else. That would make me just as bad as every jerk out there.

_Four, seven, eight_ become the only words that make any sense, a steady rhythm in my head that my heart and my lungs manage to follow, eventually. I inhale, hold, and exhale until I no longer have to clench and unclench my fists to top myself from digging my nails into my palms, or biting the inside of my cheek until it bleeds. Those are things I always regret once the sun is up and I have to get out of bed, feeling heavier than a walrus and just about as eager to go about my day, too. 

Reluctantly, still breathing way too methodically, I think about the thoughts I’ve just had. _Ángel reacted that way ‘cause his home life is shit. Papi cared about beer more than he did me, and then he cared more about her than he did us. People suck and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t breathe right anymore. I don’t want to get out of bed today, or tomorrow, or maybe forever._

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

I want to groan loudly, curling on my side roughly, but I can’t because my brain has chosen to remind me that there are, in fact, three other people sleeping in this apartment. What the hell is wrong with me? Where the hell did I get “Ángel’s home life is a mess” from? Just because he was more scared of Finn than he should’ve been? He’s the meekest, shyest person I’ve ever met. Of _course_ he’d react that way. Maybe the weed did ruin my brain after all—

Nope. Nope. Not going to think about weed tonight. 

My throat itches and fingers twitch, and I turn in bed, ignoring everything for four, plus seven, plus eight seconds. Clench, unclench.

I’m just making shit up because I haven’t slept well, but even so, I grab for my phone blindly and send Ángel a text over Snapchat.

**[12:32 AM]** _dude u up_  
**[12:32 AM]** _cant sleep lol_

**[12:32 AM] yeah** **  
** **[12:32 AM] u cant sleep either huh**

**[12:32 AM]** _indeed i cannot_  
**[12:32 AM]** _whats keeping u up_

**[12:33 AM] eh just been listening to music and stuff** **  
** **[12:33 AM] wbu**

**[12:34 AM]** _p much the same_  
**[12:34 AM]** _just not tired yet yknow?_

**[12:34 AM]** **yeah i get that**

**[12:34 AM]** _so hru_

**[12:35 AM] im doing fine** **  
** **[12:35 AM] oh btw** **  
** **[12:35 AM] im not gonna b at school this week**

**[12:35 AM]** _why?_

**[12:36 AM] im not feeling good** **  
** **[12:36 AM] i think im sick**  
**[12:36 AM] probably just a cold tho i’ll be fine**

**[12:37 AM]** _oh okay_  
**[12:37 AM]** _hope u feel better_  
**[12:37 AM]** _my abuelita has a lot of vicks vaporub in case u need it lol_

**[12:37 AM] lmao that’s okay thanks tho** **  
** **[12:37 AM] i listened to ur playlist btw** **  
** **[12:37 AM] i’ll just be honest** **  
** **[12:37 AM] yikes 😬**

**[12:38 AM]** _lollll_  
**[12:38 AM]** _so you still hate rap music_

**[12:38 AM]** **yeah even more than before i think** **  
****[12:38 AM] but at least i tried it** **  
****[12:38 AM] so u can be happy with that**

**[12:39 AM]** _yeah true_

**[12:39 AM] what did u think of my music** **  
** **[12:39 AM] be honest** **  
** **[12:39 AM] i was just v honest w you**

**[12:40 AM]** _FUCK i forgot to listen to it lol_  
**[12:40 AM]** _i will rn tho lemme go get my earbuds_

**[12:40 AM]** **k**

**[12:42 AM]** _back_ **  
** **[12:42 AM]** _send me the link again?_

**[12:43 AM] Ángel** has sent **you** a link from **spotify.com**.

**[12:43 AM]** _thanks_  
**[12:43 AM]** _i’ll txt u what i think in the morning_

**[12:43 AM] k** **  
** **[12:43 AM] enjoy** ****  
**[12:44 AM] or don’t** **  
** **[12:45 AM] gn**

I breathe through my nose, and this time it’s normal and it follows no pattern. Just breathing. Jesus. I’m a lot calmer now, free hand laying by my side without so much as twitching, and my temperature is dropping to something reasonable, thankfully enough. I didn’t really enjoy the whole I-am-a-turkey-and-the-world-is-an-oven scenario I had going on there for a second. I’m fine. I don’t _love_ that Ángel is apparently sick and isn’t gonna be at school. But it’ll be fine—we can just text each other. School’s gonna be bland as all everloving fucks, but I’ll survive.

Hopefully.

I put in my earbuds and load up Spotify, remembering to hit the Heart icon on Ángel’s playlist so I don’t have to ask him for the link again. If I end up hating it I can just delete it afterwards, anyways, though a part of me really hopes I don’t.

I hit the green, somewhat ominous “SHUFFLE PLAY” button and close my eyes, bracing myself for whatever I’m about to hear. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m expecting but it must be nothing good, because this first song makes me feel as though I’m stepping onto a battlefield.

The song’s first few notes ring a bell of familiarity in my head, which is a pleasant surprise. It’s the same booming tone belonging to the one Ángel played for me in the library, “Falling in Love With a Memory.” The song’s overwhelming production, the light piano, and the downright depressing lyrics once again remind me of my parents, and suddenly I think I don’t necessarily want to keep listening. Goddammit. That whole not-being-able-to-escape-your-thoughts thing that happened before Valentine’s Day is happening again, sneaking up on me and grabbing me by the throat when I least want it to, when I can least fight back against it. The inability to escape my own thoughts: yet another one of my poltergeists.

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

The lyrics sound frigid, nonchalant in their painting of a battlefield no soldier is coming back from in a million years, and a woman sinking into icy waters she sure as hell isn't going to get out of. The sound of the song is _cold, cold, cold._ I’m not sure how that’s possible, because I had heard messy, sad, and even being-high-enough-to-be-relaxed-but-not-quite-enough-to-feel-free, but never _this_ . But that’s just how it sounds: like you’re lying in the cold winter, thick snow wearing nothing other than a pair of shorts and a shirt, waiting for someone to come back from a place no one could return from and, predictably yet crushingly, they never _did_ make it back. It makes me haul the blankets back onto my bed and wrap myself up in them, tighter than before.

I’m trying and trying and _trying_ to push away the half-formed thoughts that have distinct voices, and memories of my parents that seem pastel blue in the middle and vibrant red at the end, but then the outro starts playing and the only thing I can do is inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. The only lyric of this verse is, “Do you know that she’s getting cold?” over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. I count five times they repeat that lyric, haunting and chilling, and then I try to lose count, to no avail. Eight times. Eight times they tried to tell him she’s getting cold, but he never heard them, never cared to, and she froze.

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhaleforfourholdforsevenexhaleforeight. Inhaleforfourholdforsevenexhaleforeight. Inhaleforfourholdforsevenexhaleforeight. Inhaleforfourholdforsevenexhaleforeight. Inhaleforfourholdforsevenexhaleforeight. Inhaleforfourholdforsevenexhaleforeight._

The song ends with the sound of the piano, this time a lot louder and clearer than it was throughout the rest of the song, a funeral march of sorts. The noise gradually fades out until I’m once again left with nothing but silence, wishing for the sound of static. I press the pause button on my phone so I can think for a moment, because my head is fucking swimming and I feel a little dizzy. Inhaling, holding, exhaling. Over and over again.

Fuck. 

Sometimes I wonder if this is what Mami felt like. I wonder if all the things she’s said throughout the years, few and far between, are true. All these little throwaway lines that I’ve kept hidden in some box inside myself, not to gather up dust but to piece together a puzzle, like I was trying to solve a murder case. And maybe I was.

Like maybe, when Elena and I were born, Papi was actually a good husband. And maybe a good dad. And maybe Abuelito and Abuelita did love him, too, and that’s why she wanted him back before the whole debacle. Maybe Elena and him would’ve had a good relationship, and things might have even gone down a completely different road when the time came. But then he re-enlisted. Mami said it was because of the 9/11 attacks, because he just couldn’t let things stay like that, knowing he could make a difference—and then he came back, and he just wasn’t the same. As if our Papi died somewhere in the war, silently and without a bang, and they stuffed someone else’s soul inside his body. I wonder if Mami ever did feel like she was freezing to death in the snow, barefoot and in her pajamas, waiting for something that’ll never come.

I am solving a murder case in my head, after all. 

I end up grabbing my pillow and wrapping my arms around it, _squeezing_ , hardly noticing the lack of support in my head when my mind starts to finally drift away from my parents. But of course, because my supply of luck is very, very lacking and life is very, very much a bitch, the fact I’m no longer thinking about them means I’m now thinking about _me_ and whoever I’ll end up with, if I do end up with anyone _at all_. 

I really wish I could stop thinking right about fucking _now—Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

I don’t wanna end up being the person sitting out in the snow, cold, freezing, left to die, waiting for something that’ll never come. It’s so, _so_ very easy to become that—if I stop trying to find a girlfriend, or if I just accept having a shitty girlfriend that will use me like a handkerchief and throw me out as soon as I stain the slightest bit. 

Then again, if I _did_ become that, and I was expected to have kids with her—which I would be, because my name is Alejandro, not Alex—then I’d be raising kids that shouldn’t have been born in the first place because I don’t even _want_ kids and especially not with someone I don’t love at all. I’d ruin their lives and traumatize them out of ever wanting to love anyone, or some equally messed up shit. Maybe even find new ways to fuck up them up other than the ones already becoming a family tradition. Fuck them up mentally, just like I guess my parents did when _they_ got a divorce.

_Oh shit._ I jolt so bad I stop breathing. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight.Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for e—_

That hadn’t even _occurred_ to me until just now—I don’t wanna be the one left behind, always trying to catch up and failing or waiting and dying, but what if _I’m_ the one who _leaves someone behind_ to die in the freezing cold? What if I become my dad, who chose a six pack of Corona over his family? Or what if I decided to choose something worse than alcohol? Pills, to take it the extra mile, just like he did?

No, scratch that—what if I become a pothead like Mami feared I would? Or what if I fell over the slippery slope and turned away from Mary Jane in order to welcome in coke? Or what if I somehow ended up cheating on my wife, traumatizing my kids from loving someone even more than I already had? What if I systematically make every single mistake my parents made and then some of my own, slowly breaking my kids to pieces, and then leaving without even helping pick up the mess? Not that fixing that would be possible.

I’d _break_ them.

I push the blankets away from myself yet again, sick of feeling like I’m yuca, bubbling in boiling water. To my chagrin, there’s no shirt I can yank off and throw across the room this time, and I feel like I’m wearing snow pants in the fucking Sahara desert. _Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck my life. Fuck my future. I’m completely fucked._

_Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

It’s not working. I sit up again. I try to breathe. I can’t regain control of the mess going on inside my lungs, shivering through my chest, long enough to even begin to inhale, hold, exhale. Four, seven, eight, my last lifeline, waves me goodbye as it leaves me stranded. I wind up pacing furiously around my room, taking care to put on socks beforehand, because being barefoot is deadly according to Abuelita and I _need_ to keep my anxious footsteps quiet as I pace around my bed.

I go back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth again until I can get a grip on my breathing. My head is spinning and I feel my nose cog with dizziness, but the room feels cool and biting again, and I can breathe. A bit. I keep going until I can breathe for real. _Until the world makes sense again._

My eyes dart to my alarm clock. 1:02 AM. I sigh, resigned, and pull on my basketball shorts, heading into the kitchen to grab some water. I don’t bother to put my shirt back on. For one, I can’t find it, nor can I focus long enough to look for it very hard, and for another, if someone else is awake and in the kitchen at one in the goddamn morning, they’ll just have to deal with my shitty appearance. I don’t give two shits.

I make it into the kitchen, grab a glass cup from one of the cabinets, get myself some water, and then drink it all right there practically in one gulp. Bottoms up, just like Finn used to do with his cans of beer when he was hanging out with me and all his friends, trying to look like he wasn’t a lightweight. Sometimes I think I was the only one who saw through his bullshit. The boy could get knocked off his ass from two drops of beer on his tongue. And then things would always go downhill from there, because Finn’s entire existence was a slippery slope.

I roll my eyes at the memory, though I don’t mean it as much as I wish I did, holding my cup under the faucet for more water, desperate for the cool liquid. I down that cup even faster than I did the first one. I exhale once I’m done drinking the water, feeling way too relieved.

I stare at the door of my apartment, the one that separates my home from the senseless world, wondering if I should just resign myself to another night of laundry, or stay in bed and listen to the rest of Ángel’s playlist. I chuckle softly, feeling a bit hysterical, at the realization of what’s just happened. The _first_ song in his playlist made me freak about how good a husband I’ll be to whoever marries me in the future. What the hell can the rest of the songs do to me?

I quietly wash my cup, knowing death will be imminent otherwise, and head back to my room like a man headed to the gallows. I take small, slow steps and hold my hands out in front of me until I feel my nightstand, then I turn on my lamp. I’d rather not faceplant or break my wrist or something equally bad, after all.

The room illuminates, and I realize in a brilliant moment of panic that I haven’t closed my door yet. _Fuck._ I dive for the door and turn the knob, closing it as slowly as possible, so as not to make any noise. Then I turn back to my room, grimacing upon sighting the first inch of it.

There are clothes all over the motherfucking place, though I don’t even know how. Last time I washed clothes was not that long ago, and I definitely didn’t have enough dirty clothes for this clusterfuck. _Then again, last time I actually properly cleaned my room…_

I don’t remember the last time I properly cleaned my room.

I look around, and my eyes land on my sneaker shelves. It’s probably the cleanest, most-organized part of my whole room, by a lot. It’s where I keep my sneakers that were too expensive to wear or too nice to ever set foot outside the house—there _is_ a difference, mind you; you’d be shocked how much money you can save by scouring the Internet for coupon codes—but that I don’t want to sell or get rid of. It’s probably my greatest achievement, which is just sad. I don’t even have anything in the Alvarez Museum other than that one assignment from middle school about Cuba. My baby teeth do _not_ count.

I sigh. The rest of my room is a horrendous mess, full of piles of clothing and books everywhere but on the shelf where they should be. The only spot that is as ordered as it should be is the shelf holding my shoes, and even that isn’t as clean and polished as I usually keep it. I start to wonder how Mami hasn’t yelled at me for it yet, especially considering my room is ordered pretty much all the time and anything other than that isn’t exactly acceptable.

I come to the conclusion that, just maybe, she’s getting as much sleep as I am because of work, and decide to leave it at that.

I flop back onto my bed and stare at the ceiling for a while, as though anything about the empty white could be even remotely interesting. The room feels chilly again, coaxing my body to relax, and I can _breathe_ . It's refreshing, relieving; a part of me thinks that it shouldn't be, that being able to breathe is the fucking norm, but I ignore what that means and just let _four, seven, eight_ become my favorite line.

Time passes in the same way it does when you're studying for a math test. I look at the alarm clock, and it’s 1:28 AM now, and, of course, I still haven’t been able to go to freaking sleep. That whole _****__telenovela_ [12]freak out earlier definitely took a lot out of me, but I’m still not any closer to falling asleep, which is frankly a paradox I want solved, one day. 

I hesitantly get up to grab my blankets again when the shivers go from pleasant to inconvenient, and put my pillow back on the end of my mattress. This time I actually rest my head on it instead of clutching it as if it were fucking life support, wriggling under the comfort of the blankets and the pleasure of the cold. And then I finally exhale.

And I grab my phone and earbuds. Hey, I haven't heard any other songs from Ángel's playlist yet, and I sure as hell won't stop listening. It'd be beyond lame to do so. I'm calmer now—if another song awakens something within me or whatever, I'll just skip it, or just go back to my own playlist and I can just tell Ángel his music wasn't my thing. It'll be fine. No one has to know about this. But I have to try first.

I stuff my earbuds back in and hit the play button on Spotify, bracing myself yet again for whatever is about to come.

I blink, baffled. The song sounds old, like it's from the fifties or sixties, but I'm too exhausted at this point to pick up my phone to see the title or the artist or the release date. Fuck it, I'm going into this totally blind, period. You only live once.

It’s slow and soft, and the sweet tune makes me get a sinking feeling in my chest. It's a love song, and I'm absolutely certain of it, but I decide to listen a little longer to see if it is or not.

Evidently, it is and as I have said many times before, I'm only ever right when I don't actually want to be right, because—I don't know, man, I must've been a very bad person in my past life, or something. 

The very first lyric—"you're just too good to be true,"—is enough to tell me everything I need to know. And even yet, I don't skip the song. Maybe I'm a masochist. An idiot, too, for sure. _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._ I'll be _fine_. If it gets that bad, then yes, I'll just skip it. Like hell am I wasting more time with another stupid freak out. Besides, it's just a damn song. And there's something almost relaxing about the instruments in the background, and the gentle melody, and the voice of the guy singing. It's... alluring. It's like a massage, almost.

Music is weird. It can make you feel all sorts of things just with sound alone.

The song continues, guileless and innocent. The lyrics clearly depict a man talking about how beautiful someone is, like they're an angel, a star, like they're too good for this world—like they shine so brightly, so _purely_ , that he can't take his eyes off of them.

At the chorus, the music shifts from slow and sweet to lively and jubilant, an energy so full of joy and hope; the only thing I can think of that matches this is the feeling I got when my mom finally gave me back my phone after she’d grounded me for four months. Though, of course, I’m _sure_ falling in love is a million times better than getting your phone back.

It actually puts a smile on my face for once, the thought of falling in love. I’ve been embarrassed and ashamed of my want for it so long, and I can't help but wonder _why_ . I’ve only ever seen romance in movies, TV shows, or real life, and in all three of those things, they’re the same: two dorky, infatuated people who were completely obsessed with each other and couldn’t keep their hands off each other, much less their minds. I didn’t want to look like that. It was so _stupid,_ the thought of willingly chasing someone around like a lost, infatuated puppy for your whole life, and them chasing you back, and you’re just two puppies chasing each other in a circle for all of eternity. _I’m better than that,_ I always thought to myself. Sure, some girls are beautiful, and some girls are super cool, and some girls are beautiful _and_ super cool, so maybe I’d grow to care about a beautiful, super-cool girl who would eventually become my amazing wife. But I wasn’t going be like _that,_ all dorky and stupid. _Me, Alejandro Alberto Alvarez Riera Calderón Leyte-Vidal Inclán, getting gooey heart eyes for someone? Impossible._

But now I listen to this song, and...somehow, some way, it feels _different_ . Of course, _yes,_ this song is clearly about having _major_ heart eyes for someone, capital M and some trademark signs included, but there’s something different about the way this song feels and sounds. It’s not dorky, or stupid, or pathetic, or any of those things I was scared of being. Not even close. It's not embarrassing.

It’s like, I didn’t get the hype around being in love beforehand, but now, I do. Someone translated it into my own language, and now I _get_ it. And it feels so great, and yet it sucks so bad.

Then the song ends without warning, snapping me out of my trance way too soon, and I find myself snatching up my phone to see what the song was called, but I’m too late by the time the screen finally decided to _****_flicker on. [13]

The disappointment doesn’t last too long, though. The next few—well, _hundred_ —songs are all about love, with little to no exceptions, and I start to see a very persistent pattern in the songs Ángel likes. I end up liking a _lot_ of them— _way_ more than I thought I would, given how polar-opposite our tastes are, and also way more than any part of me cares to admit.

As the playlist goes on and on, and the songs start and stop, and the minutes tick by, I get lost in my love-song-induced thoughts, riding the high that Ángel’s music has me on. It's like being a ballroom from the medieval ages, dancing around in a Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty style. It's...nice.

My mind wanders into significantly more positive, optimistic places, for a change. It’s incredibly out-of-character for me, and as soon as this is all over I’m probably going to go back to denying ever enjoying this until the day I die, but at this point I don’t care. I’m half-asleep, listening to music, and drunk on this romanticism. I deserve my dumb, hopeless romantic moment before I go back to being all high and mighty, and I will _enjoy_ it.

I'm not entirely sure when it was that I finally succumbed to my exhaustion, paradox be damned—all I know is that dreams of marrying a beautiful person and dancing to stupid love songs are what take me there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Footnotes:**
> 
> 11 Spanish for “beers”. [return to text]
> 
> 12 Spanish for “soap opera”. There are a lot of soap operas that air on Latin American television, and they’re all terrible. Who else had mothers that wanted you to watch _La Rosa de Guadalupe_ with them? [return to text]
> 
> 13 He was listening to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. [return to text]


	8. The Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is assigned a project.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!
> 
> We're back after our very long update break. We're sorry for making you all wait, but we hope it's worth it! We've got two chapters for you to read this week!!! This was originally all one chapter but we decided to split it into two and post them simultaneously because my OCD about chapter titles and chapter numbers aligning with one another is insane (there's a five-part event coming up, and Chapters 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 had to align with I, II, III, IV, and V or I would go insane). Really really hope you enjoy these two updates!
> 
> Once again, there are footnotes for the Spanish phrases and author's notes.

**_The Invitation: Alex Alvarez_ **

I genuinely cannot remember a time I was so happy to see another person at my school. Ever.

Though now that I think about it, that’s _definitely_ not a good thing.

Two weeks have flown by since the night I listened to Ángel’s playlist, also known as the very same night I had the freak out of the decade about being a bad husband and a fantasy about being the _best_ husband, all of which happened in the span of about three hours. Needless to say, I was exhausted and about as well rested as a med school student after that night, which, predictably, fucked my whole week over. Ángel’s oh so perfectly timed absence wasn’t helping in the least.

Finn and his sluts made it their personal mission to taunt me and try to intimidate me since what happened in the hallway, not that it worked. Every single time Finn crosses my line of vision at all, I hate him all the more. He doesn’t succeed at making my life miserable, per se—he used to be so _good_ at that, back when I was his friend—but if he ever decided to just drop dead, for shits and giggles, I wouldn’t be complaining.

But now that Ángel is finally, blessedly back and seemingly perfectly healthy once again, it’ll be a lot easier to ignore those idiots. My best friend—and woah, when did I start thinking of him that way?—is back in school, and with a timing as perfect as his leave, too, since I’d heard through the grapevine that today we’re going to get assigned a partner project in Spanish class.

I’d sent a Snap message to Ángel asking if he wanted to work on the project with me ahead of time, because there was no chance in hell I was risking someone snatching him away because he actually knew the language.

 **[7:29 AM]** _you’re gonna be back at school today right_

 **[7:29 AM] yes** **  
****[7:29 AM] how come**

 **[7:30 AM]** _word has it that today they’re assigning a partnered project in spanish class_  
 **[7:30 AM]** _wanna be my partner for it?_

 **[7:31 AM] jfc yes pls id rather break a bone than work with any other person on a partnered project** **  
****[7:32 AM] u and i are the only ones who speak spanish in that class**

 **[7:32 AM]** _XDD_

Ah, good memories. Bonding over the pitiful, painfully erroneous and insulting half-assed attempts our classmates did at speaking our damn language was always nice. Ángel is in his usual seat at the back of the room when I walk into the classroom and oh, damn, this must be what joy feels like. I smile and nod at him as I take my seat. He waves at me shortly, his expression unchanging. I know that’s his twisted way of smiling at me back. Bastard.

The bell rings as the last few kids scramble into the classroom. Our teacher closes the classroom door and begins explaining the partnered project, sounding both terribly bored and distinctly like she’s already disappointed in all of us. I smirk at the kids to whom this project is news, as shown by the horror and terror slowly consuming their expressions. _Good luck, suckers._

“This project is going to count for about a fifth of the grade,” she announces, earning a few groans and grumbles from my classmates. I even hear a whimper. My grin only grows into a full on smile. Of course, for me, it doesn’t matter how much this will affect the grade—we’re going to ace this shit, flying colors and fucking fireworks, no matter what it is. Spanish is _both_ our first languages, for fuck’s sake.

The teacher continues, glaring at the kids who are a little too vocal about their distaste for the project. “This will also function as this trimester’s assessment.” More groans, yet again, like a church chorus of dismay. “Your assignment will be to partner up with someone of your choice—”

Ha! Triumph. Ángel and I can be partners. I lean back in my seat, satisfied and beyond pleased. 

“—and create a video of the two of you conversing in Spanish.”

Many of my classmates roll their eyes, looking over to their best friends with wide, desperate eyes and mouthing some kind of attempt at coherency that most certainly includes the words “what the fuck”. I turn around in my seat and give Ángel a knowing look, working hard to contain my smugness, and he just nods back at me, solemn, like a goddamn soldier.

“The project is due Friday and _everyone_ —” the teacher pauses to look all of us in the eyes, “—will be showing their videos to the class.”

She gives everyone in the class a handout that has the assignment’s details written out on it, then goes on to tell us we’ll be able to work on the project in class tomorrow, and if not then, we’ll just have to do it on our own time outside of school. While that last part kind of, uh, _upsets_ me—not everyone is going to be able to do it outside of school, we do have _lives_ outside the classroom, after all—it gives me an idea.

As soon as the teacher tells us to pick our partners, I immediately turn to Ángel behind me and tell him about my idea. “Do you wanna come over to my house tonight and get it done now? So we don’t have to worry about it the whole week, you know?”

I don’t notice that I might as well be talking to a brick wall until I finish my thought. Ángel’s face is a fucking trainwreck. He’s staring out into space with wide, horrified brown doe eyes, as if he just witnessed a traumatizing murder or a pair of scot-free porcelain-white sneakers stepping into a puddle of mud. And then I notice he’s biting his lip again. Hard. I wince and swallow, subconsciously tracing the faint bumps lining the inside of my cheeks and my inner lips. The more they healed, the more irregularities I found and the more I bit, the more wounds I made. It was a habit, albeit a bad one, but if I was bad, then Ángel was clearly a basket case.

He’s going at it like it’s his favorite meal, and my jaw twitches with the urge to do the same, but I shake it off before it can take root in the forefront of my mind, like a weed. 

Instead, I pour my energy into being concerned about the cannibal sitting in front of me, waving my hand in front of his face approximately four times. It takes five painful wrist movements before he finally blinks and looks at me. “Did she say we had to show the videos to everyone in class?”

“Yeah, why?”

Ángel rolls his eyes the way he does at Finn’s sluts, like everything about this is stupid and pretty much intolerable, then runs his hand through his hair, then drags it down his face. That’s his oh-fuck-I-really-don’t-wanna-do-this reaction to something. Which happens so much that it stopped being amusing a long, long time ago. When it’s aimed at me, anyway, which is...still a lot of the time. 

Semantics.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell him, matter-of-fact. “It’s like you said, anyway—we’re the best Spanish speakers in this class. We’ve got this.”

Ángel bites the inside of his cheek harder, _somehow_ , and mindlessly flips through the pages in his Spanish binder like it’s a best seller novel before begrudgingly muttering, “Alright.”

“So…” I say, dragging out the “o” sound in the word way more than what was necessary. Enough that Elena would hit me if she were around, telling me to speak like a normal human being. The hypocrisy is real. “You wanna come over to my place? Get it out of the way?”

Ángel’s got that look in his eyes that reminds me of when I’d first talked to him in the library after the dance, and he’d slammed his book down and said, “Why are you asking me so many questions?” It’s a look that I have grown accustomed to, though I have yet to develop an ounce of appreciation for it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could stand to never see it again. One can dream.

Finally he says, like he is accepting a mission to defuse a hydrogen bomb, “Sure. Where do you live?”

I smile, taking his simple “sure”—even if it was alongside a nostalgically frightening facial expression—as a victory. “Oh, you don’t have to get a ride to my place. I could just as my mom could just pick us up.”

“Oh. Uh, actually, my parents aren’t really…” Ángel pauses for a moment, seemingly trying to find the words, as though they elude him as much as Spanish eludes half of our populace. “My parents don’t like it when I try to go to someone’s house on short notice. They need to be told ahead of time and stuff. _****__Tú sabes como es.”_ [14]

“Oh.” _Sounds a lot like my mom from when I was little. Or, you know, two years ago. Or six months ago. Or, you know—now._ “Well, can’t you text them now? I mean, you’re fifteen and you act like my sister—don’t worry, she’s a nerd but she’s great—and, I mean. You’re pretty responsible. They’ve gotta trust you at least a _little_ , right?”

He pulls out his phone, sighing in a way I’ve come to recognize as hesitance. “Sure. I’ll tell you what they say at lunch.”

* * *

Lunchtime, God’s gift to students, rolls around and, once again, I actually look forward to it. I swear I will force Ángel to take care of his health myself if I have to—I absolutely do _not_ want a replay of these past two weeks. School without a friend is hell. Walking into the library feels good again, especially when I see Ángel surrounded by his beloved literary murder weapons. When I drop into my chair in front of him, leaving my backpack to fall beside me, he fills me in on the plan while toying with the edge of his current book.

“So, my parents said that they prefer that I come home first, ‘cause they don’t know you and haven’t met you or your mom yet,” Ángel says. “and then they said that they’d drop me off wherever you live about an hour after school ends.” Then he shrugs. “Sorry about how strict they are.”

“That’s okay. My mom’s Cuban. I get it,” I tell him with a chuckle, remembering the million instances when my mother being strict had complicated one thing or the other. “I’ll text you my address and apartment number, so you know which one’s mine.”

“You live in an apartment building?”

“Yeah. We’ve been living in the same place since I was born,” I say, ignoring how his hand froze where it was idly flipping through the pages. “How come?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s just…” He does that thing again where he trails off and tries to find the right words, usually still seeming dissatisfied with whatever he manages to put together in the end. He bites his lip, and suddenly, worry is eating away at my brain again. “I don’t really know how to find my way around an apartment building?”

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I tell him. “I’ll text you instructions. It’ll be okay.”

I should be relieved. If that was it, then I had nothing to worry about.

Then why the hell was I still worried?

Ángel only gives me a curt nod and turns back to his book, absently thumbing through the corner of the pages once again. “Alright.” He puts two earbuds in his ears, slumps in his chair, and dutifully buries his teeth in his lips. 

It makes me even more nervous, to see him biting his lip. And not only because it makes my teeth itch to start gnawing on the irregularities I left the night before, either. 

When the, um, _incident_ in the hallway happened, I saw Ángel bite his lips twice—once when Finn pounced on him, and again when Mark threatened him. That, as well as moments like the one just now, took my theory of it being a habit to foster concentration and chucked it out the window and into oblivion. It gave birth to a new theory, though, because apparently I have more of Elena’s inability to stay out of people’s business than I will ever admit.

Maybe it’s just a thing he does reflexively. That’s the less outlandish, more logical theory. But then again, my brain says, maybe it’s something he does when he’s stressed. Or anxious. 

Or both. 

I’m very aware of his unspoken two-earbuds-in rule, and I respect it so much it’s borderline excessive but, this time, I press my luck anyway. “Hey, can I ask you something?” I say, tapping a finger on the open page of his book to get his attention. 

He glances up at me sharply enough for me to regret doing it at all, and puts the bookmark back in. Then he pauses the music. He doesn’t take his headphones off. “What?”

He’s gradually reverting back to his old I-barely-know-you-so-fuck-you attitude, full with the annoyed tone and icy glare. He’s clearly not in the best mood. Then again, I don’t exactly enjoy being on the receiving end of a murderous stare just for asking a question. “Um… I noticed that sometimes you bite the outside of your lip? Why do you do that?”

"It's just a habit I've had since I was a baby," he says, shrugging it off. "I never outgrew it, I guess." Then he presses Play on his earbuds' inline remote, marking the end of the conversation and lifting his book for good measure.

Ángel and I are best friends. I think we've known each other long enough in order to back up that statement. We like to hang out together, and he's talked to me more in the past month than he's talked to anyone else in school in the past year, most likely. And even though it's only been about a month, I wish he wouldn't put in two earbuds and bury his face in a book whenever he got upset. I feel like I'm back at square one. 

It’s a surprisingly shitty feeling.

Regardless, I decide I might as well be productive, if I have time to feel sorry for myself. With that in mind, I open my math textbook and get to work, deciding to leave him alone for the time being. I'm not exactly sure why he’s so grumpy all of a sudden—the surprise "you have to show this to the whole class" is the only thing that comes to mind, but that just doesn't seem like such a big deal— but hey, maybe he'll come around at some point. 

Hopefully. 

I bite the inside of my cheek, finally chewing on all the bumps and lingering bits of skin that had been bothering me all day. I’m struggling with a especially resilient bit and trying to figure out the numbers swimming in my mind, when the memories from the night I'd listened to Ángel's playlist come rushing back. It’s probably _because_ of me being worried about Ángel, but the thoughts joining the pool of numbers and uncertainty turn the knots in my stomach into a french braid. 

_Quit it, brain,_ I think, tearing off that annoying bit of skin. _Now’s not a good time._

* * *

I send Ángel a message as soon as I get home. In fact, I dig my phone out of my pocket as soon as I’m through the door, because if I’m inside the apartment then it’s already acceptable for me to text him, right?

 **[3:31 PM]** _so ur gonna be here in an hour?_

**[3:32 PM] yeah, i'll let u know when i'm on my way**

Satisfied, I head to my room and throw my backpack on my chair. When I put down my phone, plop onto my mattress, and look around my room, I come to the horrifying realization that Mami’s going to have my head if I let someone see my room in this condition.

There’s clothes, magazines, books, balls used in various sports scattered everywhere, just like I’d observed the night that I listened to Ángel’s playlist. The only thing here that isn’t a total mess is my sneaker collection. So, to put it simply—nothing has changed, and it is about to become a problem of titanic proportions.

Most of the clothes on the floor are resting in a pile in the corner, most of them curled up in a ball and tragically wrinkled, on the opposite side of the room that my bed is on. Putting two and two together, I wince as I realize this must be because I have a tendency to yank off my shirt and throw it at the wall in anger. Or because I’m overwhelmed by the heat. Or because I’m tired. Or some other, equally strong and ridiculous emotion that kickstarts the urge to undress and throw things. Things which...admittedly should only ever work together in two very particular scenarios, both of which have been conspicuously absent from my life and will continue to be for the time being ‘cause I’m going to die alone.

But, back to the shirt-throwing—I’ve been doing that a lot more lately and I don’t know if that’s good, but I really don’t think it is.

I drag my eyes around the room for a moment, looking for my hamper with a hint of panic. I eventually find it shoved away in the closet, neglected and abandoned like a street rat, where I also find an inordinate—see, I know big words, too—amount of other old clothes I haven’t seen in years. I haul my hamper out of the closet and start gathering up all the socks, shirts, and basketball shorts scattered around the floor of my room, then I shove the hamper back into the closet. I only have an hour; it’s not like I can finish sorting through all of my clothes and belongings _****_Marie-Kondo-style by four-thirty. [15]

I put the disorganized sports equipment back on my shelves, putting minimal effort into making it look nice. By the time I’m done, you couldn’t possibly say my shelves are particularly organized unless you are blind or stupidly polite, but you also can’t say that all my belongings are scattered across the floor like a children’s war zone, either.

Finally, the books and magazines: I simply grab them all and put them on the bookshelf, not bothering to organize them in a specific order or by category or anything like that. It’s definitely nothing like how Elena _alphabetizes_ her books by author surname, or by genre, or any of that weirdly specific crap. I’m not _bad_ at being organized per se, I just never actually feel putting some real effort into it. Sure, I can do it if I absolutely have to, but I usually don’t, and I’m not about to offer.

Once I’m done making my bed and picking up the occasional stray sock, everything is either shoved into my closet, under my bed, or has been put back in its spot. I exhale contentedly, satisfied with my deceitful, half-assed version of tidying my room, then head into the living room.

“Hey, Mom, I have a friend coming over.”

Only when she turns around do I realize that Mami is eating Cheetos straight from the bag, a bag which she will almost certainly end up tearing open and licking clean. She has a panicked look in her eyes, as though I had told her Obama was coming for a visit, and her hair’s a touch too disheveled. “What?!” She shoots up from the couch, and as she does, Cheeto crumbs fall and roll down her shirt, where they’ve seemingly been building up like an anthill, falling down onto her sweatpants and right onto the floor.

My eyes widen at her condition. “Calm _down,_ Mami, it’s so we can work on homework.” Cringing, I painfully glance down at her outfit once more. “Though you might wanna change before he gets here.”

Mami starts heading to the kitchen to put the Cheetos away before I’m halfway through my sentence. _“Papito,_ you know you can’t just have people come over without warning! You have to tell me ahead of time!” Then she turns back to me, her eyebrows furrowed, her expression almost angry. _Uh-oh_. “And who is this friend? Why are they coming over? And what do you mean I should change?”

I blink once, twice, thrice, then take two steps back. “It’s Ángel, the same boy we gave a ride home to at the dance last month. He’s coming over ‘cause we have a Spanish project to work on together. And what I _meant_ by that is, you’re not really gonna wear _that_ when one of my friends is coming over, are you?”

Mami looks like she’s being used as a target for darts at a bar, and the players are blackout drunk; needless to say, she looks severely displeased, especially because I am the drunk player and my words are the—possibly poisoned—darts. 

“Wait,” she says, holding her hands up in front of her as if to physically halt the momentum of the conversation. “Back it up for a second. Or, like, maybe twenty. You and Ángel are _friends_ now?” Her eyes widen in joy… or is it _triumph?_ _****__Ay, esta vieja._ [16] “You took my _advice_?” she says incredulously.

You would think I just told her I read the entirety of the dictionary for kicks.

I throw back my head and let out some sort of disappointed noise that’s somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “Could you _not_ freak out about this?” I ask her immediately, already trying to rub a headache away with a tired hand. 

“Why not? _Papito,_ this is a great thing!” I roll my eyes as she goes on, sighing. “I mean, I didn’t really think that anything we talked about in the car at the Valentine’s dance really stuck with you, but it looks like I was wro—”

I cringe and set my jaw, then look her dead in the eyes. Distantly, I wonder if this is what Ángel feels every time he tries to glare me to death. “Could you not bring that up _right now?_ Please?”

“Why not?”

I bite the inside of my cheek as hard as I can, forgetting that it will lead to me chewing the whole area until it’s raw because of the irregularities left by the wound. “I just don’t like to remember that. It was really hard for me, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, holding her hands up again, this time in mock surrender. There’s this look in her eyes, kind and comforting but far from pitying all at the same time, that makes all my discomfort melt away. “I’m just proud of you, _Papito.”_

The smallest of grins appears on my face. Those words, when coming from her, are among the things I hold in a secret chest close to my heart, where I hide all my treasures away so they can never be taken away. Mami’s pride is one of those things, and will always be one of those things. “Thanks, Mami.” Then I sigh. “So, are you gonna change?”

Mami’s face contorts in fake offense, lips pursed and eyes rolling. _“Okay,”_ she says, stalking off to her bedroom. “I’ll go change so as not to _embarrass_ you.”

My snort is the only thing louder than the humor in her voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Footnotes:**
> 
> 14 Spanish for "You know how it is." [return to text]
> 
> 15 Author's note: I want Season 2 of _Tidying Up with Marie Kondo_ , and I want it now. [return to text]
> 
> 16 Spanish for "Oh, this old lady." [return to text]


	9. The Family Freak Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is embarrassed by his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second part of our two-chapter update today. There's A LOT of footnotes cuz there's a lot of Spanish in this chapter! It was EXHAUSTING to link everything up--HTML is a bitch--but it's all done now and everything should be working. The only ones that aren't meant to go anywhere are the superscript numbers placed at the ends of Spanish dialogue.
> 
> There are two conversations that happen entirely in Spanish in this chapter; to read them in English, please click the footnote at the end of the conversation's first sentence. The English translations have been placed at the end of the chapter text because there wasn't enough room in the end notes. :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**_The Family Freak Show: Alex Alvarez_ **

“Hey.”

That is the only word Ángel utters when I open the door for him. He stands before me wearing black from head to toe; a black beanie, a black hoodie that goes all the way down to his knees, black sweatpants, and black sneakers—very,  _ very  _ nice black sneakers, might I add. He, or whoever bought them for him, has great taste and I approve. Somehow, I’m not surprised. 

His wardrobe finally matches his essence.

I wonder how often he wears this all-black outfit. Los Ángeles is normally pretty warm, though tonight is a little chilly and rainy, and winter’s about to end, so maybe it’s not too uncomfortable to wear all-black clothing outside tonight. Then again, maybe he’s like me and he cares more about style than he does about comfort. Pain is an illusion, and fashion is  _ not _ .  __****_Para ser bella hay que ver estrellas. [17] _

“Nice fit,” I tell him.

“Thank you.” A small grin crosses his face, and it’s the genuine kind I rarely get. “I’d wear it to school, but we have the dumbass dress code.”

I roll my eyes at the reminder of its existence. “I  _ know _ . It’s so stupid.” Then I open the door farther and gesture for him to come in.

He does, only taking two short steps into the apartment. I wait for a short moment, expecting him and somewhat hoping him to just walk to the sofa, maybe the table, but he remains stone still and I tell myself I’m not disappointed as I close the door. 

“You can sit down, y’know,” I say with a teasing smile. “You don’t have to feel like you’re in  _ una casa ajena _ _.” _

Ángel exhales as he tentatively takes a seat on the armchair, like the fabric will bite him. “Thanks, but I  _ am _ __****_en una casa ajena.” [18] _

“Hi!” my mom says as she enters the living room from the kitchen, outright beaming. I find myself holding my breath, hoping this doesn’t turn into a whole Broadway production in which Ángel will meet my whole family—and everyone’s significant others, to boot—and then leave because my family’s weird as hell, vowing he’ll never come back or something equally dramatic.  _ I promise I’m not like them, _ I think silently in my head, staring at the back of Ángel’s head in a useless attempt at developing telepathy. “How are you doing, Ángel? I’m Penelope, Alex’s mom. We gave you a ride home from the dance!” She holds out her hand for him to shake.

_ He remembers you, Mami, _ I want to say. I also want to drag Ángel away from her as soon as humanly possible, even if that means I have to carry him  __****_como un saco de papas. [19] _

“Yup, I remember,” Ángel says with an awkward, unbelievably small smile on his face as he shakes my mother’s hand, echoing my thoughts. “I’m good. Thanks for having me over.”

Ángel has already shown my mom more immediate politeness in all of ten seconds than he’s ever shown anyone who’s ever set foot in our school at any point in time, and that very much includes me. Which is as insulting as it is unsurprising, and which earns him no points with me. If points were currency, then I’m not sorry to say that from this point forth, Ángel might as well be bankrupt.

I will make him pay if it’s the last thing I do, goddamnit. 

“Alex says you’re here to work on a Spanish project with him?” Mami says this while looking at Ángel, but tilting her head toward me.

“Yeah,” I say a little too quickly, jumping at the chance to get Ángel away from the rest of my family ASAP. “We have to record a video of ourselves having a conversation. It’ll be easy. I was thinking we’d record it in my room.”

Ángel blinks at me as if never in a million years had he been expecting that last bit, but hey, where else would we record? In the living room? Fuck no; too high a risk of him meeting everyone else. Before we knew it, we’d be pulled into whatever new shenanigan the circus I had for a family came up with.

_ Yeah, no thanks. _

“Sure,” Ángel says.

“Okay.” I smile, barely managing to keep my smugness out of it. My master plan has worked and I am beyond pleased. 

We manage to take the grand amount of four short, glorious steps toward my room before my dreams are thoroughly shattered by the familiar, currently ominous sound of the curtains being pulled back. Both me and Ángel freeze in our tracks. When my Abuelita pulls back her curtains, she commands the room. There’s no avoiding it. “Papito,” she says, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend?”

_ I love my Abuelita, I really do,  _ I think, wincing, _ but my fears are beginning to come true and I don’t like it. _ The part of me that can never let go of the frail, stupid hope that my family will someday quit embarrassing me shrivels up at the use of my nickname. It shrinks, yes, but the damn thing is like a _****__cucaracha_ [20]—fucking inmortal.  _ I was hoping that Ángel would never have to hear that. _ Then again, they’re never going to stop calling me Papito, not even when I’m a hundred years old—though me getting past twenty is looking less and less probable every day—so I might as well get used to it, right?

_ Right? _

Tell that to my hope, the bitch needs a wakeup call.

I reluctantly turn to Ángel, trying for a smile that most likely looks just like a grimace. “Ángel, this is my  _ abuelita _ . Abuelita, this is my friend Ángel.”

Just like I thought she would, she immediately notices the way I pronounced his name, the Spanish way,  _ Ángel _ , the way he prefers it—the way he likes it. The fact that his skin is even darker than mine and his black hair is curly in that special way means that Abuelita’s undoubtedly about to ask—

“Ah _ , Ángel! _ Is he  _ cubano _ ?”

The odd question makes Ángel chuckle, and then bite his lip. My jaw twitches. “No, I’m Mexican.” 

_****__ “Pero sí eres latino,” _[21] she says. _ “Me da alegría conocer a otros latinos. Tu  _ amigo _ debería de saber eso,” _ Abuelita continues, looking at me sadly, silently despondent because I didn’t introduce him to her earlier. I mouth an begrudging apology—because, annoyed or not, this is Abuelita—as she sticks out her hand for Ángel to shake, which he does once again.  _ “¿De cual parte de México eres?” _

_ “Yucatán,” _ Ángel responds.

_ “Ah, ¡Yucatán es un lugar tan hermoso!”  _ Abuelita gushes.  _ “¿Alguna vez has ido a Yucatán?” _

Ángel just shakes his head.  _ “No. He estado aquí en Los Ángeles toda mi vida.” _

She gasps.  _ “¿Nunca has salido de Los Ángeles?” _

Ángel tentatively shakes his head no, looking uncertain, like he doesn’t know what the right angle is for this conversation and like the wrong answer could land him in bad territory. I get him. Being on the receiving end of Abuelita’s queries always has an air of danger and pressure to it that is hard to ignore.

_****__ “Bueno, espero que algún día tengas la oportunidad de ir a Yucatán.” _[22]

Even though I already knew they’d connect over this almost immediately, it is surprising how long this conversation has gone on. Ángel didn’t do this with my mom  _ or _ me when we met him, and he definitely didn’t do it with me until days after I started having lunch with him. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.

I’m just about ready to sit down on the couch and start counting all the reasons why I thought this was in any way a good idea so I can berate myself for my naïveté when Hurricane Schneider comes knocking at our goddamn door.

Figuratively, of course. Lord knows the guy never knocks.

“Hey, Pen,” a familiar male voice accompanied by the sound of a doorknob turning and a door opening, and my heart sinks. I let out a despaired sigh and bow my head, offering my silent surrender to the universe. _Speak of the goddamn devil._ _Now Ángel’s gonna find out what a freak show this family is tonight, isn’t he?_ Schneider enters the room holding a toolbox in one hand and a mechanic’s creeper in the other, wide grin ever-present. “I’m here to fix your couch.”

A look that’s somewhere between disgust and confusion flashes across my mother’s face, hiding the layers of fond annoyance. “I never asked you to  _ fix my couch, _ Schneider,” my mom says, sighing.

“You didn’t  _ have to,”  _ Schneider says, like he is right and Mami is very wrong. “Your couch is old and ratty and in  _ pain _ , Pen. Of course I’m going to help you fix it, since you hate to spend money so much.”

Before I can beg Ángel to come into my room with me, hoping he somehow missed the giant oddity that Schneider is, he nods at Ángel. “Hey, Alex, who’s your friend there?” he asks as he sets the mechanical creeper down on the floor. 

Mami rolls her eyes and walks off into the kitchen with a shrug, almost undoubtedly thinking to herself,  _****__ “Ya no puedo con este cabrón. _ _ ”  _[23] Or maybe,  _ “You’re on your own, buddy.” _

“This is Ángel,” I say, though I don’t know why because Schneider has already slid himself under the couch for some goddamn reason and I’m talking to fucking air. “Ángel, this is Schneider.”

Schneider momentarily rolls himself out from under the couch and offers Ángel a handshake. “‘Sup?” he says, and the way that he says such a word with no inhibitions makes me shudder from  _****__ pena ajena _ [24] _. _

Ángel’s handshake with Schneider is a lot less natural than it was with Mami and Abuelita, and the pinched expression on his face is truly something else. I can tell he thinks Schneider’s weird. Like, were-you-dropped-as-a-baby kind of weird. Hell,  _ I  _ think Schneider is were-you-dropped-as-a-baby kind of weird and the guy has been family for fucking  _ ever _ .  _ Dammit. _ The fact Schneider is one hell of an acquired taste is undeniable, but Ángel totally could’ve found that out a lot later. 

“Hi.” Then Ángel turns to me. “Why did he barge in here to fix your mom’s couch?” he whispers once Schneider has used his creeper to roll back under the sofa, looking disturbed.

“He’s the landlord. And handyman. And my mom’s best friend, though I don’t know if she’s going to admit that right now,” I say as I glance over at my mom, who’s leaning on the kitchen counter, alternating between burying her head in her hands and staring at the spot where Schneider used to be in exhaustion. “He lives upstairs. Schneider is over our place a lot.” He’s also sort of my weird ass, sort of parental figure who is kind of a bad example, but I leave that part out.

Ángel hides a smile and I can feel my soul return to my body.

I finally exhale. “Okay, so I guess I’ll show you to my room now,” I say. He can meet Elena and everyone else later. Or, ideally, never.

“Okay,” Ángel says.

He and I finally,  _ finally _ head into my room. No interruptions, or people jumping out of the bathroom, or someone appearing from Mami’s room. No more freaks are putting on a show today. The circus is closed, hopefully for a long time. Or, well, until Elena and Syd come back home. I shudder to think of that, though, so I shake the thought off before I get truly depressed.

My laptop is set-up on top of my desk, along with Schneider’s faithful camcorder, which was used to film my one and only, precious contribution to the Alvarez Museum. The camcorder’s tripod is propped up in the corner of my room, in between one of my skateboards and my desk. Ángel stands awkwardly in the doorway for a moment as I take the tripod out from its corner, where it has sat, desolate and abandoned, ever since I needed to film for that school assignment. His eyes drag all over the room, no doubt taking in how frail the illusion of order is. Ah, well, he already knows I suck at a lot of stuff, he might as well find out something new to add to the list.

“I figured we could use this,” I tell Ángel as I set up the tripod in front of my bed and mount the camera onto it, furrowing my brows in concentration. “It’s Schneider’s. Haven’t used it since middle school, but it’s still good as new.” Only when I’ve finished mounting the camera do I realize that Ángel still hasn’t moved an inch, and that he looks as lost as he did when I opened the front door to him. “You can sit down on the bed, y’know. I meant it when I said you don’t have to feel like you’re  _ en una casa ajena.” _

“And I meant it when I said that this  _ es una casa ajena,” _ Ángel quips, the hints of a smirk growing on his face as his shoulders relax minimally.

I smile, rolling my eyes for good measure. “Dude, seriously, relax. This isn’t a royal palace. This place is  _ far _ from fancy,” I tell him as I think back to how Schneider had barged in and used his creeper to slide under our couch in a matter of two minutes. Any sort of hope to make him think that this place was in any way sane and normal kind of went out the window right then and there.

Finally, he hesitantly shuffles into the room and sits down on the bed, in the same cautious way he did the armchair, like the covers are plotting his murder. And I even made the bed to seem more polite, too.

The talk about manners and being polite and gracious when visiting  _ una casa ajena _ suddenly reminds me of something very important, and I curse under my breath.  _ How did I forget this? _****_Mal cubano. [25] _ “Oh! Do you want something to eat or drink? You’re welcome to stay for dinner if you want,” I ask him, not knowing for sure if he actually  _ is _ welcome—but hey, I’m pretty sure Abuelita would barricade the door before letting him leave before eating unless anything short of a pandemic was going on.

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I already ate before I came here,” Ángel says, waving me off and focusing his gaze on my shelves. “Thanks, though.”

I blink.  _ It’s only, like, four-thirty. _ I brush it off anyways. Weird eating habits aren’t all that weird, especially with teenagers, or worse—Latino teenagers. Elena and I are most definitely a testament to  _ that _ . 

I turn on the camera and look at the viewfinder, adjusting the camcorder’s position so that both Ángel and I will fit into the frame, before giving him a thumbs up and hitting Record. I sit down next to him on the bed, stifling a yawn as I stretch in preparation for the round of serious talking, a habit I’ve had since middle school. It’s meant to help me concentrate but now, somehow, looking into this camera that has a bright-red LED light indicating it’s recording is intimidating.  _ Should’ve just used my phone. Too late now. _

“Oh,” Ángel says aloud, as if he’s just realized something, grimacing.

I turn to him, feeling like maybe fate is pulling another one of its little pranks. Fate is such a bitch. “What?”

“I forgot to bring my school stuff here,” Ángel says somewhat guiltily. “I don’t have my Spanish binder or anything. Sorry.”

I smile, relieved. “You scared me there, man. Don’t worry about it, we can just use mine.” I get up to grab my backpack and pull out the white binder I use for Spanish class, fighting with the other books in there in order to get what I need.

“Didn’t she say we had to have a conversation about a specific topic or something?” Ángel says as we flip through the pages of my binder, frowning like a disgruntled cat. “Like, we can’t just talk about whatever the hell we want, right?”

I smirk, arching my eyebrows toward the camera as I remember its existence. “No, and we also can’t  _ say _ whatever the  _ heck _ we want.”

Ángel’s eyebrows furrow at my odd use of “heck,” looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and raising an eyebrow, until he remembers the camera. “Oh shit,” he says, mouth dropping open, then immediately smacks his hand over it. We stare at each other in silence, wide-eyed and gaping, for one, two, four more seconds before we both burst out laughing. “Sorry, sorry,” he says through his laughter, his mirth softening into a faint smile in a matter of seconds.

He composes himself pretty quickly, unlike me, who is still wheezing into my elbow like a child.

”It’s okay,” I tell him once I’m able to fucking breathe again. “I’m gonna edit this video. I can cut out whatever we need to cut out.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”

“But let’s keep the work to a minimum, okay?”

“Right. Sorry.”

Ángel bites his lip, trying and failing to suppress a smile. We both end up laughing our asses off again, if only for a little bit, for no particular reason other than because we can and our current situation seems endlessly hilarious. 

I sit up again, finally having gotten all my laughing out of my system, then look back down at my binder seriously. “Okay, how about we—”

“I’VE GOT  _ NOTHING!” _ I hear someone scream from the living room, full of anger and frustration, and I audibly groan, dropping my head onto my arm.  _ Must you embarrass yourselves in front of my friends? _

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Can we stay here?” I mumble, hoping my misery will be enough to convince him not to question me any further, but when is that ever enough?

Ángel looks at me with raised eyebrows and a thumb aiming towards the door hesitantly, mouth halfway open in a question he evidently doesn’t know how to form. “Hang on for a second,” I tell him with a bone-deep sigh, resigned to my fate. “I think my sister’s going insane.”

I walk into the hallway, grateful that Ángel has not followed me. A person can only take so much embarrassment before they break. “Elena, what’s wrong with you?”

Elena and Syd are standing in the middle of our living room, arms crossed, and that is never good. Elena’s hair is wild and disheveled, in a way that indicates chaos and exhaustion, unlike Mami’s lion mane when I told her that Ángel was coming over. The bags under her eyes are bigger than Mami’s purse and darker than my wrist when I sprained it a game or so ago, and her glasses are sliding down her nose at a precariously fast rate. She has no makeup on—not that she ever does, of course, but it’s thrice as obvious right now—and I can tell by the wrinkles and suspicious stains on her clothes that she hasn’t showered or bathed in many, many moons. I start to wonder if she remembers what a bathroom is. Or even a change of clothes. Maybe I might be able to talk her back onto deodorant?

Syd is looking at their girlfriend with eyes full of concern that would be comical under any other circumstances, their hair tied back in a high ponytail. They place their hands on Elena’s shoulders. “She’s been like this for the past two days,” Syd reports, looking apologetic.

“Like what?” I exclaim, approaching both them and Elena, the annoyance shining through brilliantly in every word. Mami will probably yell at me later for “being rude with guests around,” but Syd is over so much they’re barely a “guest” anymore, and besides, the two of them are the ones being louder than usual when  _ I  _ have a guest over. It’s on them. “Why does she look like a sleep-deprived police detective? Or—I don’t know, a freaking zombie? The Tumblr conspiracy meme? What has she been— _ oh _ .”

I look down at the enormous, black tri-fold board Elena is holding with a horrifying sense of dawning realization. There is a ridiculous amount of color-coded note cards pinned to the board, all of which appear to be falling off and merging with the carpet. The chaos  _ reeking  _ off the board tells me that there was once a time that these note cards were neatly organized and glued to their rightful spots, but now Elena hates it all, and will continue to hate it until she finds anything else to hate. No, scratch that—there’s enough hate in her to go around.

I look over at Syd again, who has picked up a white binder thicker than my head, labeled “College Essays”. The fact that the word “essays” is plural and not singular disturbs me on a level I can't quite comprehend. “She’s been trying to write her essay to get into Yale but she keeps starting over,” they explain, hesitating, and then: “over and over again…”

I rub my temples, feeling the headache coming on like an old, neglected but dearly beloved friend, and sigh. “Look, guys, I get it, but could you just keep it down? My friend and I are trying to record something for school and it’d be great if you could—”

“Your friend? What friend? I thought you didn’t have friends,” Elena says, frowning in a mix of confusion and bewilderment, some sort of clarity shining through the haze of madness in her gaze.

I falter. 

_ That hurt. _

“What? Since when don’t I have  _ friends?” _ I hiss, making sure to keep my voice down. 

Elena runs her hand through her messy-ass hair. “We’ll talk about it later,” she says, shaking her head in dismissal. I’d interrogate her until she spat out the truth—my eyes glance over at my mother, who is the only one who could’ve told Elena that I left all my friends behind, with a growing sense of betrayal—but Ángel is in the next damn room and I don’t need him to  _ really  _ feel like he’s in  _ una casa ajena. _ No need to start a scene right now. I bite the inside of my cheek until I feel my eyes start to sting, soothing the deep indents with my tongue and ignoring the familiar taste of iron as Elena continues. “So who’s this friend of yours? They’re here?”

I exhale. Slowly. And for a while. Four, seven, eight.  **_Four. Seven. Eight._ ** “Yeah, his name’s Ángel. He’s my partner for a Spanish project. Now could you  _ please  _ keep it down?” I glance over her appearance once more, trying not to grimace. “And maybe take a shower?” Elena glares at me as I turn around to go back to my room. I make a mental note to confront her about what she said later, and then highlight it with red tape. 

Ángel’s still sitting on my bed, his eyebrows furrowed, looking distinctly like an anxious child sitting outside the Principal’s office. I would know. “Is everything okay?” he asks, genuinely concerned.

I sigh, more unsettled than I expected and more tired than I want to admit. “Yeah. Yeah. My sister’s just, y'know,  _ loca,”  _ I mutter. Then I pick up my Spanish binder once again. “So, where were we?”

* * *

Ángel’s Spanish is, in one word, exceptional. Though, of course, I’m not exactly sure why I’m surprised.

I don’t remember what specific topics we were  _ supposed  _ to be talking about, but I think we have enough footage of us talking about one generic subject or the other that we’ll be fine. We’ve been having a whole-ass conversation in Spanish for the past hour, if my calculations are right, and it’s fucking  _ awesome. _ I’ve never had a real Latino friend that had actually spoken Spanish as well as he spoke English, or even better. There was this dude named Hugo back when I was in middle school, and we were friends for a while, but I’m pretty sure he got scared of me after he saw me punch that kid who told us to go back to Mexico during our school trip. I haven’t seen him in a long time now, and he hasn’t exactly reached out or anything.

I lay across my bed horizontally, my legs hanging off the side of the mattress, talking aimlessly as Ángel lays opposite me, staring at the ceiling with a calm, calm look. I feel like a languid cat, joints loose and muscles soft. We’ve been talking about everything and anything, from cooking to shoes, and I feel weirdly relaxed now. I haven’t felt relaxed in… a while. 

I don’t think that’s a good thing.

_****__ “Oye, nunca me dijiste que pensabas de mi lista de reproducción,” _ Ángel says to me in Spanish, turning around to face me with— _ holy fuck _ , is that a  **_pout_ ** ?[26]

I need to take photographic evidence of this moment, but I value my life and my friendship, so I roughly push the urge down and mourn the wonderful, wonderful blackmail that could have come out of this.

Belatedly, I blink. _The night I had had the freakout about being a good or bad husband. That song. Falling in Love with a Memory._ _“¿De veras? Creí que ya lo había hecho.”_ Of course I hadn’t—I was trying so hard to block that night out from my memory that I’d rather chew all my nails right off than bring it up. I was hoping that that thing where you’re so traumatized you forget it happened would happen to me—Elena mentioned something about it when she was researching PTSD for some reason. An essay? Yeah, definitely an essay. Or was it a short story? A fanfiction? Oh, hell, I don’t know.

Ángel shakes his head, looking vaguely smug.  _ “Nop. Si ya lo hubieras hecho, lo hubiera recordado.” _

I sigh and turn around to face him, trying to keep myself as boneless and noodle-y as before. We’re both lying on our sides now, facing each other. I take a deep breath, feeling like I’m about to confess something for some reason.  _ “Me encantó.” _

Ángel clearly isn’t expecting that; his eyebrows raise for the very first time since I came back. The glint in his eyes looks suspiciously like hope, and it’s a better look on him than anger.  _ “¿De veras?” _

I nod.  _ “Sí. Me sorprendió también.” _

_ “¿Cuáles fueron tus favoritas?” _

_ You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you, you’d feel like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much… at long last love has arrived, and I thank God I’m alive, you’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you…  _

I only shrug, blinking the sound and lyrics of the first out of many love songs I’d heard that night away. Instead, I focus on the expectant look on Ángel’s face, on the curious tilt to his head. I like this.  _ “No miré los títulos. Estaba medio dormido, sabes.” _

_ “Maldita sea, Alejandro,” _ Ángel bursts out in a tone that’s so clearly accidentally-hilarious, somewhere between seething and grumbling but still managing to come out flat, I can’t help but start laughing, rolling on my side. Ángel does not join me.

_ “Te gusta reír mucho.”  _ Ángel observes, unamused.

_ “Sí, claro que me gusta.”  _ I tell him once I manage to catch my breath, sighing...contentedly. “ _ No me he reído en mucho tiempo. Lo extrañe un poco.”  _ I face him once again, giving him a bright grin that’s a touch too genuine for me to brush it off as nothing later.  _ “Gracias por hacerme reír de nuevo.” _

Ángel hesitates to answer, lips parting but no sound coming out. He seems at a loss for words, as if he hadn’t been expecting me to say that. Those big brown eyes of his are wide and analytical, once again making ten zillion micromovements per millisecond, as if he’s trying to decode what I meant, the same way he looked at me those first few days I began sitting next to him. Wondering why someone would dare to be so nice. Wondering what I wanted from him in return. 

_****_ Wondering why the answer to that question was  _ nothing _ .  _ “De nada,”  _ he says finally, after a pause that was too long, and his voice is quiet but painfully honest, in a way that makes my eyes widen infinitesimally. [27]

Oh.

Two knocks at our door interrupt us, and both our heads snap toward the door. “Ángel,” my Abuelita says in English, smiling sweetly, “would you like to eat dinner with us?”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I already ate before I came here,” Ángel reassures in English, looking apologetic as he sits up.  _ “Pero gracias, señora.” _

I follow after a long moment of hesitation. I don’t want to lose that feeling of peace and calm, but it doesn’t look like I have much of a choice. Since both of them have decided to go back to speaking English, I do too. “You sure? You came here, like, two hours ago,” I say, glancing over at the clock that was about to hit 6:00 PM. “You’ve gotta be a  _ little _ hungry. Abuelita, what did you make?”

Abuelita smiles, and oh, shit, that’s the devious grin that says she’s got us in the bag. “I made  _ ropa vieja,” _ she says, causing a wide smile to appear on my face, as I understand her angle, “and everyone has come over to taste my delicious food.” Then she opens my bedroom door wide, and starts gesturing for the both of us to follow her. “ _ Vengan _ , the both of you!”

I look over at Ángel, who looks significantly more anxious than he did thirty seconds ago. I can’t quite help the surge of disappointment when I see the brown in his eyes is stoic and uncertain again, calm slipping right between my fingers. Guess it can’t be helped. I myself am losing the feeling of relaxation I had a moment ago, but I don’t mind. A part of me hopes I can get it back, some other day. Even if a little voice says, quiet but deafening,  _ you’re wrong. _

“Please?” I say, flashing my patented Charming Álvarez Smile™ at him and tilting my head like a puppy. “I promise you, it’s  _ really good. _ My abuelita makes  _ ropa vieja _ like no one else.”

“What’s  _ ropa vieja? _ ” he asks me, furrowing his brows and scrunching up his nose.

Oh, right. He’s Mexican, not Cuban. Slowly, excitement wells up within me and I can’t quite hold it, which is evident in the way Ángel’s eyebrows rise up comically in response to whatever the hell my face is doing right now. 

“Come and find out!” I say in my best impression of a salesman, leaping up from my bed and heading out the door to the kitchen with a winning grin. “Come on!”

The sound of Ángel’s tired, but distinctly amused sigh, widens my grin and all I can think is that, just maybe, we’ve taken a whole staircase in the right direction. 

* * *

## English dialogue translations

**21 Here is the complete English translation of Ángel and Lydia's conversation. Click the footnote at the end to warp back to the main text.[return to text]**

_“But you are Latino,”_ [21] she says. _“I love to meet other Latinos. Your_ friend _here should know that,”_ Abuelita continues, looking at me sadly, silently despondent because I didn’t introduce him to her earlier. I mouth an begrudging apology—because, annoyed or not, this is Abuelita—as she sticks out her hand for Ángel to shake, which he does once again. _“What part of Mexico are you from?”_

_ “Yucatán,” _ Ángel responds.

_ “Ah, Yucatán is such a beautiful place!”  _ Abuelita gushes.  _ “Have you ever been to Yucatán?” _

Ángel just shakes his head.  _ “No. I've been here in LA my whole life.” _

She gasps.  _ "You've never even left Los Angeles?” _

Ángel tentatively shakes his head no, looking uncertain, like he doesn’t know what the right angle is for this conversation and like the wrong answer could land him in bad territory. I get him. Being on the receiving end of Abuelita’s queries always has an air of danger and pressure to it that is hard to ignore.

“Well, I hope someday you get the chance to visit Yucatán.” [return to text]

* * *

**26 Here is the complete English translation of Ángel and Alex's conversation. Click the footnote at the end to warp back to the main text.[return to text]**

_ “Hey, you never told me what you thought of my playlist,” _ Ángel says to me in Spanish, turning around to face me with— _ holy fuck _ , is that a  **_pout_ ** ?

I need to take photographic evidence of this moment, but I value my life and my friendship, so I roughly push the urge down and mourn the wonderful, wonderful blackmail that could have come out of this.

Belatedly, I blink. _The night I had had the freakout about being a good or bad husband. That song. Falling in Love with a Memory._ _“Seriously? I thought I did.”_ Of course I hadn’t—I was trying so hard to block that night out from my memory that I’d rather chew all my nails right off than bring it up. I was hoping that that thing where you’re so traumatized you forget it happened would happen to me—Elena mentioned something about it when she was researching PTSD for some reason. An essay? Yeah, definitely an essay. Or was it a short story? A fanfiction? Oh, hell, I don’t know.

Ángel shakes his head, looking vaguely smug.  _ “Nope. If you had, I would've remembered.” _

I sigh and turn around to face him, trying to keep myself as boneless and noodle-y as before. We’re both lying on our sides now, facing each other. I take a deep breath, feeling like I’m about to confess something for some reason.  _ "I loved it.” _

Ángel clearly isn’t expecting that; his eyebrows raise for the very first time since I came back. The glint in his eyes looks suspiciously like hope, and it’s a better look on him than anger.  _ “Seriously?” _

I nod.  _ “Yeah. Surprised me too.” _

_ “Which ones were your favorites?” _

_ You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you, you’d feel like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much… at long last love has arrived, and I thank God I’m alive, you’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you…  _

I only shrug, blinking the sound and lyrics of the first out of many love songs I’d heard that night away. Instead, I focus on the expectant look on Ángel’s face, on the curious tilt to his head. I like this.  _ “I didn't look at the titles. I was half-asleep, y'know.” _

_ “Dammit, Alejandro,” _ Ángel bursts out in a tone that’s so clearly accidentally-hilarious, somewhere between seething and grumbling but still managing to come out flat, I can’t help but start laughing, rolling on my side. Ángel does not join me.

_ “You like to laugh a lot.”  _ Ángel observes, unamused.

_ “Yeah, of course I do.”  _ I tell him once I manage to catch my breath, sighing...contentedly. “ _ I haven't laughed in a while. I missed it a little.”  _ I face him once again, giving him a bright grin that’s a touch too genuine for me to brush it off as nothing later.  _ “Thanks for making me laugh again.” _

Ángel hesitates to answer, lips parting but no sound coming out. He seems at a loss for words, as if he hadn’t been expecting me to say that. Those big brown eyes of his are wide and analytical, once again making ten zillion micromovements per millisecond, as if he’s trying to decode what I meant, the same way he looked at me those first few days I began sitting next to him. Wondering why someone would dare to be so nice. Wondering what I wanted from him in return. 

Wondering why the answer to that question was  _ nothing _ .  _ “You're welcome,”  _ he says finally, after a pause that was too long, and his voice is quiet but painfully honest, in a way that makes my eyes widen infinitesimally. [return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Footnotes: 
> 
> 17 The Spanish equivalent of "Pain is beauty". Literally means "To be pretty, you have to see stars." The Spanish version of this idiom is significantly darker, we know. Spanish don't fuck around. [return to text]
> 
> 18 A Spanish phrase that literally means “a strange house” but is used to express “someone else’s home” or more specifically, someone else’s home that you’ve never been in before. Us Latinx children are taught that coming into someone else’s home for the first time and not asking permission for everything is super rude. My experience with it is, you can’t sit anywhere or walk anywhere or do anything until the homeowner tells you it’s okay to do so. [return to text]
> 
> 19 Spanish for "like a sack of potatoes". [return to text]
> 
> 20 Spanish for "cockroach" [return to text]
> 
> Footnotes 21 & 22 were the English translation for Ángel and Lydia.
> 
> 23 Spanish for "I can't anymore with this fucker." [return to text]
> 
> 24 Spanish for "secondhand embarrassment". [return to text]
> 
> 25 Spanish for “Bad Cuban”. A reference to Season 2, Episode 5, “Locked Down,” in which Lydia smacked herself in the face after realizing she had forgotten to cook dinner for the more-than-five guests at the apartment, while saying “Mala cubana.” [return to text]
> 
> Footnotes 26 & 27 were the English translation for Ángel and Alex.


	10. The Presentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Ángel present their project.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! I hope you all had a good Juneteenth yesterday.
> 
> Here's another chapter. I really enjoyed writing this one and I hope you all love it as much as I do. And of course, this fic would be nothing without my co-writer Gab--she contributed _so much_ to this and just made it 10x better. I love this chapter so, so much. Enjoy all the Ángel you're getting here.
> 
> Anyways, stream Love, Victor on Hulu, Black lives matter, and have a nice time reading.

**_The Presentation: Alex Alvarez_ **

As fate would have it, my whole family loved Ángel, but Elena seemed to reserve a special sort of adoration for him, which hadn’t surprised me in the least. What  _ did _ surprise me, however, was that Ángel seemed to like Elena too.

Upon arriving at the dinner table and sitting down with the eagerness of a guy about to eat his favorite food, a sinking feeling settled in my stomach as I belatedly realized this would mean Ángel would inevitably be meeting my sister and her Sydnificant other. I tried to push down the sudden dread that enveloped me, telling myself that there was no reason for me to feel like this, focusing my attention instead on the delicious food still in the kitchen, awaiting to be eaten. The distraction lasted less than the  _ ropa vieja _ would as soon as it was placed on the table.

Elena had come up to us almost immediately as soon as Ángel had sat down at the table with me—which, by the way, included an agonizingly long ten seconds in which Ángel stared at the dining table chair in front of him warily, reached out tentatively to touch as though it were an angry pitbull, then pushed it out and sat down in it with  _ purpose _ ; he takes being in  _ una casa ajena _ to a whole new level, and he doesn’t even need a mother glaring him down the entire time to do it. I watched, weary and resigned, as Elena embarrassed herself yet again as she introduced herself and Syd to Ángel, immediately making a point to tell him that she’s gay, even though Syd’s presence and her constant lack of makeup was more than enough to denote that. But hey, whatever—Elena’s unwavering gay pride can be annoying sometimes, but it’s better than being ashamed of it, right?

In the face of the walking disaster known as my sister and—let’s be real here—probable future sibling-in-law, Ángel did not flinch and search for the nearest escape route as many lesser men would have (and actually have). Instead, he sheepishly responded, with one of those small but overwhelmingly genuine smiles of his, “That’s cool. So am I.” Elena promptly released a sound that could barely be categorized as human, if at all, and gave him a grin as bright and wide as the sun, and that was...kind of it.

In all honesty, their meeting went way better than I expected, and I sure as hell wasn’t complaining. But I wasn’t just going to put on a big ol’ smile on my face and pretend everything with me and my sister was fine and dandy; I still want to know what the hell she meant when she said I have no friends, and I plan to find out. Talking to her is one of my top five priorities, but no matter how important it is to me, there’s no way it’s happening today. Just sitting around the same title, sharing a meal full of raucous laughter, grins and enough Spanish to make Schneider go pale more than thrice, depleted my energy. But I need to know what she’s talking about, I need to know what’s wrong so I can fix it. For her to say that...what the hell, really? I just want to feel normal and that’s looking more and more like a distant dream.

Dinner went by fast, just like all enjoyable things in life do, and soon I was seeing Ángel out, going as far as to walk him down all the flights of stairs and out of the building, standing at the gate and waving at him until he faded into the distance. He was happier than usual on his way down, a content kind of smile resting on his mouth and a relaxed, soft curve to his shoulders that I had never really seen before. It was nice to see him so happy and loose, as though all his concerns had faded into background noise for a little while and he was enjoying it while it lasted. I understood the feeling, maybe a little more than I’d ever like to admit, and I was determined to make it stay with him as long as possible. So I cracked jokes, knocked our shoulders together very slowly so I wouldn’t startle him, and watched his reactions closely. Sometimes he rolled his eyes, others his smile widened infinitesimally and, when I got particularly lucky, I got a short, soft laugh out of him and couldn’t help my beam, even if it was smug ass hell. It made the extra stairs worth it.

Nine PM came by the time I was finally back inside my room, toeing my shoes off and sitting upright in bed now, laptop sitting on top of my lap (where it was designed to be). I’m importing the camcorder’s footage onto the damn thing and waiting for the video editor to open the hell up, repeating my mantra religiously in an attempt to stay patient instead of throwing them both at the wall. 

The stupid green progress bar, which was moving slower than a decrepit turtle in what was definitely a personal slight against me, finally hits 100% and disappears; the video files have finished copying onto my laptop. Relieved, I let out a quiet cheer and disconnect the camcorder from the laptop and set it back on my desk, thankful I’m probably never going to have to touch this thing again in my life. If I have my way, I won’t so much as  _ see  _ it ever again.  _ Recording and editing footage like this is so much work.  _ How the hell did 12-year-old me decide he was going to make a whole-ass  _ movie  _ about his Cuban heritage when no one ordered him to?

Maybe I’ve been turning into Elena for way longer than I thought.

I finally start editing the video, getting into the most comfortable position I can and taking a deep, focusing breath. The first part where Ángel says “oh, shit” immediately after I’d told him not to swear is right at the beginning, getting a snicker out of me. Now, it was things like this that made Ángel’s presence a good thing. 

I lie back, deciding this will be more comfortable for my back and more detrimental to my neck, my laptop resting on my chest, warm and heavy. I hit Play so I can watch the whole video to see when we stopped talking about school stuff, to see where to cut and where not to, and maybe to laugh a bit, too. 

I don’t realize the video is almost one whole-ass hour long until I’m about 20 minutes in, when Ángel was going off on a tangent about how movie adaptations of books are always so much worse than the books themselves—which, for the record, I strongly disagree with. In the video, I was lying across my bed with a pillow under my head as I listened to him, staring at him in fascination as he went on and on and listed multiple examples of books that were so much better than their motion picture counterparts. He wasn’t particularly loud or harsh, but there was a fire in his wildly gesticulating hands and his vivid facial expressions that I saw very, very little. I hit Pause and stretch for a moment to grab a glass of water. 

When I come back, I decide to actually do something  _ productive  _ and skip to a random part of the video well past the halfway mark and listen to it for a bit. Sure enough, it has positively nothing to do with any of the topics we were assigned, so I split the clip and delete everything after it, with an unexpected ounce of hesitation that I forcefully shake off. I exhale at just how much the video’s running time has shortened, shoulders nearly collapsing with relief. It feels like less of a workload now. More...I don’t know, manageable.

I look at the clock and grimace. 9:35 PM. It’s still Monday; I have until Friday to finish it, but I also really don’t want to have this assignment hanging over my head the rest of the week. It’s bad enough to have homework lingering in the back of my mind every other day.  _ I’ll work until 10:00 PM, _ I decide, taking four, seven, eight seconds to breathe and put my headphones back on. It’s time to find the moment we forgot the Spanish-language conversation was for scholastic purposes, and though it’s my main mission, it somehow feels like a betrayal.

* * *

My back is fucking killing me after being hunched over the laptop for hours on end, finishing the video editing. Admittedly, I did not stop working at 10:00—it’s almost midnight now and moving hurts like a bitch, but I regret absolutely nothing. I twist to the left and to the right, groaning under my breath like an old man all the while, and the sheer noise of my spine cracking and popping makes me think of Mami scolding me, but it makes me feel better. I decide to pick up my phone and text Ángel now that I’m finished, to share the good news and all. I turn the fan on, turn the lights off, and then yank my shirt off. Out of habit, I ball it up in my hands and pull my arm back, about to throw it at the wall before I stop myself and remember how I’d reflected upon my shirt-throwing habits while cleaning my room earlier. Mainly, how they’re entirely  _ not _ due to the only thing in the world that shirt-throwing is meant for—and thus I decide to toss it onto my desk, very carefully and deliberately. I’ll definitely notice that in the morning, which means Future Me can pick it up and put it in the laundry later—wherever the fuck the hamper happens to be. That's a Future Me problem, not mine.

**[12:07 AM]** _hey_  
**[12:07 AM]** _its a lil past midnight and i just finished editing the whole video lol im exhausteddd_  
**[12:07 AM]** _how r u_ _  
_**[12:07 AM]** _howd u like meeting my freakshow of a family lmao_

**[12:07 AM] first of all** **  
** **[12:07 AM] “it’s a lil past midnight” yeah no shit sherlock i have a clock on my phone too** **  
** **[12:07 AM] second of all, bitch u stayed up to edit the whole thing tonight????? it’s fucking due friday u have TIIIIME** **  
** **[12:08 AM] also ig srry i didnt help edit, i didnt know we were gonna talk for so long and also I DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO EDIT THE WHOLE THING TONIGHT JFC WE WERE TALKING FOR LIKE TWO OR THREE HOURS** **  
** **[12:08 AM] if id known u were gonna edit i woulda stuck around bitch** **  
** **[12:08 AM] wait how long did you edit for**

**[12:08 AM]** _well i started at nine_  
**[12:08 AM]** _soooooooooooooooooo_  
**[12:08 AM]** _from then until now lmao_ _  
_**[12:08 AM]** _bitch its midnight you think i can do math???_

**[12:09 AM] yes bitch in fact i do think u can do math** **  
** **[12:09 AM] you have a habit of staying up this late and texting me regardless of whether or not you have a huge ass assignment to deal with so using ur brain at this hour shouldnt be such a difficult task** **  
** **[12:09 AM] also ur straight and im gay, if either one of us is bad at math it has to be me** **  
** **[12:10 AM] gays cant math** **  
** **[12:10 AM] and ur the one who gets perfect grades cuz ur scared of ur mom**

**[12:10 AM]** _hey im scared of my mom for good reason_ _  
_**[12:10 AM]** _shes cuban okay shes scary and if i get bad grades she’ll stab me_  
**[12:10 AM]** _ur latino u should know tht_  
**[12:10 AM]** _also elena says that stereotypes are harmful and perpetuation of any stereotypes should end, in case you care_  
**[12:10 AM]** _i certainly dont but since ur gay you might care to be more woke than i am_

**[12:11 AM] fair point** **  
** **[12:11 AM] also i dont need lessons in wokeness from elena or u or anyone** **  
** **[12:11 AM] i am a person who is very equal opportunity** **  
** **[12:11 AM] no matter who u are** **  
** **[12:12 AM] no matter where u come from** **  
** **[12:12 AM] no matter who u love** **  
** **[12:12 AM] im gonna treat u like a piece of shit** **  
** **[12:13 AM] thts true equality**

**[12:13 AM]** _HAHAHAHAHA_  
**[12:13 AM]** _wait u sure about that?_  
**[12:13 AM]** _u were very nice to all the adults tonight: my mom, my abuelita, schneider (even tho hes a weirdo?? like seriously dude u have the right to cuss at him, lord knows my mom does)...u ain’t treatin them like pieces of shit_  
**[12:13 AM]** _not that im complaining lol_ _  
_**[12:13 AM]** _and u dont treat me like a piece of shit anymore_

**[12:13 AM] youre trash until proven otherwise** **  
** **[12:14 AM] thats how i make friends** **  
** **[12:14 AM] and my friends’ families arent trash unless my friends say so**

**[12:14 AM]** _ that doesnt sound like a system that’ll get u very many friends _

**[12:14 AM] yup** **  
** **[12:14 AM] flawless**

**[12:15 AM]** _ lmaooo _

**[12:18 AM] did u want something or can u just not sleep**

**[12:18 AM]** _eh not really ur just the only person i really text lol_  
**[12:18 AM]** _editing was a lot but it was fun to rewatch our whole night_  
**[12:18 AM]** _thx again for making me laugh_

I turn the screen off again when I send that last message, thrusting my phone under a blanket and feeling like I’m hiding or something. A pang of fear, cold and painful, surges through me and settles in my gut like a rock when I see the screen illuminate from under the blanket, and I’m not sure why. I look around my dark room—the phone screen’s luminance isn’t bright enough for it to draw anyone’s attention. Good.

**[12:19 AM] you’re welcome** **  
** **[12:19 AM] it seems unlikely that i of all people would make u laugh**

**[12:20 AM]** _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_  
**[12:20 AM]** _but you did tho_  
**[12:20 AM]** _what can i say_ _  
_**[12:20 AM]** _ur fun to be with_

**[12:21 AM] thanks** **  
** **[12:22 AM] i dont believe u but thanks**

**[12:22 AM]** _no problem_

**[12:24 AM] ok my eyelids are heavy so im going to sleep now** **  
** **[12:24 AM] goodnight**

**[12:24 AM]** _ goodnight _

I put my phone down again and breathe for a moment, slowly realizing that I’ve been following some kind of pattern similar to four, seven, eight. I push the thought away and just  _ think _ . If I’d met Ángel a year ago—well, he would probably hate me because of whatever the fuck my friendship with Finn was.

_ But  _ if I’d met him a year ago, I don’t think I would’ve understood him as well as I do now, if at all. Back then, I could confidently say I was hot shit and ask out any girl I wanted, sure that I wouldn’t get rejected and shrugging it off with a smirk if I was. Those were the days before I was sad and angry all the time because suddenly everyone in my family was “ _ killing it!” _ or “ _ a badass!” _ or “ _ a strong independent woman!” _ and I’m just the cutie with a great smile and fantastic hair.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have understood why someone would deny compliments instead of saying “thank you” or “you’re right,” but now I do. I get it. That feeling of everyone around you succeeding and winning at life like they’re pros while you’re stuck in the same place with nowhere to go and nowhere to fucking turn freaking  _ sucks. _ And even though Ángel is my best friend, I don’t know him as well as I could. Hell, I don’t know him well, period. I still don’t know why he feels like he’s less than everyone else, why he turns his eyes away when I say something nice about him, why he avoids compliments. Why he said, “I don’t believe you, but thanks” just now when I told him he was fun to be around, as though it was a lie born out of pity. Why he slammed his book down on the table and asked me why I was being nice to him that first day in the library, looking so annoyed and so cold. Why he’d even bothered to attend the dance in the first place if he’d clearly been having a shit time—not that I’m in any place to judge; I didn’t want to be there either, and I didn’t enjoy a single moment of it.

My best friend is such an enigma. God.

I put my phone in the drawer of my nightstand and then turn to rest on my left side, pulling the blankets up over my head and resisting the urge to scrub my hands over my face.  _ Now I get what it’s like to hate yourself and be surrounded by those who love themselves.  _ Ugh. Normally, at this point, I’d start to get angry at everyone for doing so great while I’ve been sitting here rotting like a half-eaten apple at the bottom of the garbage can, but I don’t have the energy anymore. 

_ Energy. _

The word tastes foreign and bitter on my tongue, heavy when I try to form it and heavier still when I decide to swallow it instead.  _ Energy _ . That’s something I haven’t had in a while, no matter how hard I try, and something that I’m seemingly only able to muster when I’m around Ángel—when I’m actually  _ feeling good. _ I haven’t done much outside the apartment lately, though the only things I really do outside of the apartment are go to school, play basketball in the school courtyard or in the park, or go to the gym.

_ When was the last time I went to the gym? _ Right before the Valentine’s Day dance.

I open my nightstand to grab my phone once again. It’s 12:30 AM now, on the 19th of March. It’s been over a month since I last went to the gym.  _ Shit. _

I set my phone to remind me to go to the gym in the afternoon at 4:00 after school and leave my phone on Sound instead of Silent, even if the only person who texts me is Ángel. I don’t think he’ll be texting me again tonight. When he says “bye”, it’s “bye”. He’s simple like that.  _ Just  _ like that, actually.

_ Going to the gym will be good for you, _ I tell myself silently in my head, in the same tone Mami used on me to get me to go to the dentist when I was nine.  _ You need to get your ass out of bed and go do something, and besides, you need to burn off the extra calories from today’s meals, especially the ropa vieja. So get some damn sleep so you can wake up on time for school and with enough energy to make it to the gym afterwards. _

I yawn and stretch, putting my phone back in its place and pulling the blanket over my head once again, this time determined to get to sleep once and for fucking all tonight. I’m exhausted.

Huh. That seems to be my catch phrase as of late.

* * *

It is almost 3:30 PM, the half hour after school flying by in a flash, when I made a quick pit stop at home to change out of my school uniform and into something more comfortable—but no less flattering, duh—to exercise in and to let Mami know that I was going to the gym. I value my life, after all. Soon enough I’m on the train, earbuds in and eyes closed, waiting for the vehicle to stop in the correct neighborhood so I can get off and walk the rest of the way to my gym.

The train comes to an abrupt stop that makes my eyes snap open as I scramble to take out my earbuds.  _ Nope, wrong neighborhood. _ I put my earbuds back in, calming myself, but my attention doesn’t have time to settle back on my music before I see two vaguely familiar faces board the train and sit down across from me on the opposite side of the train. They’re both teenage boys that are probably my age, and they appear to be a couple, going by how they’re holding hands and giggling and—yup, they just kissed. Couple.  _ Where the hell have I seen you two freaking love birds before? _

It comes to me when the shorter one of the two chortles and smiles into the other’s hair. Oh! They’re the same teenage-boy couple that got onto the train the last time I was going to the gym while I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d glared at them with envy, not that either of them noticed—they were both too busy making goo-goo eyes at one another, caught in their own little world and probably all too happy to stay there. 

I hadn’t paid very much attention to them when I saw them on the train last month; I’d only noticed how in love they were and I hated them for it. But now that my eternal bitterness seems to have been replaced by eternal sadness, I actually take a look at them for the first time instead of looking at the love between them or what they’re wearing—the latter of which I always pay attention to, no matter if I’ve known you my whole life or if you’re a stranger walking past me on the street that I’ll never see again.

The much taller one has dark caramel skin not unlike mine, but the shorter one’s skin is even darker. Tall Boy has curly brown hair and big, black eyes, while his physique suggests he has been going to the gym more often in the past month than I have. Short Boy has wavy black hair and his eyes are even bigger, brown doe eyes. Short Boy is also wearing a purple hoodie that’s  _ definitely _ way too big for him, to the point of it being ridiculous—it most likely belongs to Tall Boy. Short Boy is also wearing a matching purple skirt, which—what the fuck is up with that mismatched, ill-advised mix? An all purple outfit is risky, dude, put more thought into your clothes, would you? You’re not a freaking hobo—and I abruptly notice his phone case is the rainbow flag, so he’s definitely pulling an Elena and not hiding the fact he’s gay in the slightest. Tall Boy, on the other hand, with his—in Elena’s words—“traditionally masculine” wardrobe could probably pass as straight if Short Boy weren’t here right now. But not, like, a Finn-straight; not a straight guy that’s a total idiot and has no idea what he’s doing and will probably grow up to be a rapist—no, more like a me-straight, someone who actually knows how to talk to girls and knows that no means no. They’re also sharing a pair of white earbuds, though what they’re listening to is beyond me. Tall Boy nods his head to the rhythm while Short Boy rests his head on Tall Boy’s shoulder, his eyes closed, enjoying the presence of his boyfriend. Their bubble is almost glistening, so pure and light and unapologetic. 

I’m frowning now.

I look away so that I don’t risk the chance of either of them noticing me staring at them and then getting creeped out, or uncomfortable or hurt or worse. My gaze shifts to the window beside me as I watch the train speed through the underground tunnel, whizzing past the graffiti and the posters that serve as advertisements, though who is going to read those is beyond me.

I bite the inside of my cheek, tugging viciously at the loose skin and forming scar tissue littering it as a thought occurs to me. I don’t immediately know what I think of this thought: Tall and Short Boy remind me of myself and Ángel.

_ What an odd thought, _ I decide finally, and when it really catches up with me, I almost swallow my tongue and die.

My shoulders tense as I try to justify it, swallowing thickly.  _ Well, you  _ are _ desperate, for one, and it doesn’t help that Tall Boy and Short Boy look like the dollar-store editions of you and Ángel, respectively. _ I mean, come on. A tall probably-Hispanic boy sharing earbuds with a shorter-probably-also-Hispanic boy on a train? You can’t blame me if they reminded me of myself and my best friend with whom my relationship is entirely platonic. You really can’t—it’s only natural, after all.

I mean, not that it’d be bad if it weren’t strictly that way—I mean, of course it’d be bad, for a myriad of reasons that I can’t even begin to list, but like, it wouldn’t be  _ bad _ , bad. Not that liking guys is wrong, I mean, Ángel likes guys and he’s the coolest guy I know. I just don’t like them and starting now seems like a shit idea, especially with this guy. I don’t like guys and I don’t want to like them, either, but I also wouldn’t hate it if I did, but—but. But it would be bad. It would be bad, bad,  _ bad _ .

Before I realize it, my forehead is touching the window and my chest is rising and falling three paces too fast, and I’m sweating and fuck,  _ not here, not now—not ever _ . I curl my hands into tight, painful fists that make my knuckles and palms burn and dig them both into my pockets until I feel the fabric might cave, gritting my teeth until my whole jaw aches. I try to think of calm things, of nice things, of ropa vieja and sneakers and Spanish and Ángel rambling on with the hint of a smile and his completely relaxed posture when he left yesterday and—nope, nope, not working, switch tactics, redirect— _ stop _ .

I bite my lip until I taste copper and feel that sharp, sudden burn, and then I take a breath that only serves to make my chest hurt more. I’m grasping at straws, trying to curl in on myself without drawing too much attention to the disaster I’ve quickly become, and my eyes hurt,  _ fuck—four _ , Elena’s voice whispers in my head, faintly, and I cling onto it in a way I haven’t in a long, long time.  _ Four, seven, eight. Four, seven, eight. Four, seven, eight. Four, seven, eight. Four, seven— _

It’s a desperate string of words that really should have lost any kind of meaning by now, because it seemed so pointless, but it held the promise of oxygen and a steady heartbeat and I wanted that so,  _ so  _ much. So much that I clenched my fists even harder and sucked on the blood on my lip and breathed in for four seconds, held it in for seven, and exhaled for eight. Again. And again. And one more. And all over again. And once more.

I did it over and over again until I could loosen my fists and stop curling in on myself without all my icky bits spilling all over the floor for everyone to see. Slowly, I let go of my aching, wounded lip and pressed a hand over my chest, feeling the wild beating thing inside of it and willing it to slow down four, seven, eight seconds at a time. It wouldn’t be bad. It wouldn’t be bad. It’d just be best if it wasn’t, is all. It’d just be best if things stayed the way they were, if they didn’t change. If I didn’t make a mess out of the one good thing I had right now.

Fuck, man. A hand ran through my hair and another one scrubbed at my face, a groan that sounded exhausted even to my own ears falling from my mouth. I really needed to stop having these breakdowns, especially in public.  _ Mal cubano, Alejandro _ , I thought and sighed, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes as I began to register one of Ángel’s murderous, dangerous songs playing in my headphones.

I come to the epiphany that I hate life as the train comes to a stop, this time in the neighborhood I need it to. I get the hell off the train as soon as I possibly can and almost book it to the gym, breathing a sigh of relief as I finally open the doors to it and enter for the first time in way too long. This,  _ this  _ is what I need and I am glad I came. What I need is to run this stupid funk off and get it together, damnit. 

My legs carry me to the nearest available treadmill immediately after I greet and say hi to the gym’s staff, who make some obnoxiously snarky comments about how long it’s been since I’ve been here. I just smile and laugh along, the familiar façade reminding me of how I used to be friends with Finn.  _ Ugh. _ My inner thoughts don’t like me today, but I don’t really like them, either, so it’s even. I don't need them either, and I’ll prove it by forgetting all about them. 

I silently thank my past self for changing into appropriate workout attire  _ before _ I arrived at the gym; I do not have the energy to go into any locker rooms. That’s just more school memories I don’t need, and I’m content to stand on the treadmill and start it after a few short, cursory stretches that Mami would yell at me for. I don’t care. Not about if I get hurt or sore and certainly not about the consequences Future Me will certainly have to face in the future. That’s his problem and right now, my only problem is the fact that I’m not running. 

That can be fixed.

I pop in my earbuds and let myself run as fast as humanly possible on the treadmill, exercising my thoughts away and hoping that tomorrow will be a better day. Hoping desperately that things won’t change, too, because I’m having a hard enough time keeping my patches sewed together as it is, and I really don’t need my threat running off on me.

_ No more thoughts, _ I decide, and up the speed three levels, breathing in, breathing out. 

* * *

**[6:20 AM] how much would you hate me if i decided to skip school today**

I have to read Ángel’s odd text message twice when I wake up on Friday, bleary-eyed and intent on hitting snooze for another precious, wonderful five minutes. It’s the day we’re supposed to show the presentation we recorded to the Spanish class, and it’s terribly encouraging to wake up to my partner abandoning the boat before it even sails. I blink and rub my eyes to clear my vision, saying goodbye to my five extra minutes of sleep, turn down the screen brightness, and type out a response. 

**[6:34 AM]** _um, not at all, but i’d really appreciate it if you did show up_  
**[6:34 AM]** _why dont u wanna do this lol we’re the best spanish speakers in the class we’re gonna be fine_

Ángel begins typing for some time, then he stops. Then he starts again. My gut twists every time the sign fades out and in, and I have half a mind to tell him to stop playing with my emotions or I’ll die. He’d probably answer with “then perish lol” without a second thought but the urge is still there.

**[6:37 AM] do u mind if i call you…** **  
** **[6:37 AM] ik calling is a deadly sin in 2019 but ugh i cant type**

**[6:38 AM]** _ sure, u can call me _

My phone buzzes in my hand with Ángel’s name on the screen in large text, accompanied by green and red phone icons. It’s past 6:30 AM, and since it’s a school day, that means everyone should be awake. Calling someone won’t disturb anyone, and even if it did, I’m pretty sure I’d still take the call. It is Ángel, after all, even if it feels weird to admit it. I rub my eyes harshly and press the green one.

I hold the phone up to my ear, and realize that I haven’t actually been in a phone call for fucking ever. Huh. “Hello?”

“Hi.” Ángel’s sleepy, grumbly voice is on the other end. He sounds like what a wet cat would sound like if it were human. 

“Your voice is pretty low over the phone,” I tell him, brain muddled by sleep and confusion and a weird mix of fondness and annoyance.

“Congratulations, you have ears,” Ángel responds in that signature snarky tone he has that makes me laugh every time. Except this time, when I consider hanging up on him and sending a smiley face as an explanation. It’s a brief fantasy, but it is a wonderful one. “Yours sounds quite high over the phone.”

“How interesting.”

“Interesting.”

“So why did you want to call?”

“I don’t wanna go to school today.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like presentations. I’ve never done one.”

I smirk. “What do you mean, you’ve  _ never _ done one? That’s impossible.”

“Oh, no?” His tone rises higher at the end of his question, making me question my own logic, and Ángel’s methods. “It is, trust me.”

“How?”

“I have my ways.” 

Ah, Mystery Ángel. Good to have you back, old friend.

“You can do this one, though. First of all, it’s pre-recorded. You don’t have to speak to the class if you don’t want to. Which you obviously don’t. And second, you’re an awesome Spanish speaker. Seriously, I think you might be better than me. By the way, how did you get so good at it?”

“First of all, that doesn’t matter—I hate watching recorded footage of myself, it’s never pretty. Second, thanks, and I don’t know, I just learned it from birth.” I can hear him shrug, which is—new. “Nothing complicated.”

“Why do you hate video footage of yourself?”

“You mean to tell me you’ve never hated the way you looked in a photo or video?”

I pause for a short moment, my mouth open halfway through a retort that dies before it ever comes to life. It may be hard to believe, but yes, there have been many instances where I hated the way I looked in a photo. Too many, now that I think about it. But it was mostly the ones that Finn and his sluts took with me and posted to their Finstas—you know, the drunk and/or high selfies in which I would be in the corner, nervously holding a vape pen or beer bottle that I didn’t really want to smoke or drink—those were the only photos that were left. The ones where I  _ was _ willingly smoking or drinking, enjoying myself because I was too relaxed and my brain was coated in too much cotton for me to care, have been permanently deleted for a  _ while _ . I’m never going back to that place in my life,  _ ever _ . Most of their photos that have me in them have been taken down, because the hate I have for Finn’s sluts is totally mutual, but every so often I’ll come across a video buried deep in my camera roll that I thought I’d deleted where I’m forcing a smile next to Finn or I’m even downright frowning, not even trying to feign a happy face. Of course, they were all too high off their asses to notice. Poor bastards.

But the worst ones were the ones where we were all laughing, looking happy and liking each other because when you’re high and drunk your worst enemy is your best friend, and I could recall the sensation of wanting to smoke more, wanting to drink more. It made me crave the crawling in my throat, the burn, the itching in my lungs. Made me want things I should never, ever reach for again.

“Okay, that’s fair,” I tell him, keeping my voice even. “But in most of them I look sexy as hell.”

I hear Ángel snicker, which is a relief, and a nice sound to boot, even if it drips with mischief. But I don’t laugh along, can’t, because I just made that vain joke to make myself feel better after pondering my dark past as one of Finn’s sluts, and that leaves a sour, bitter taste in my mouth. 

Finally, I sigh. “Just come to school, okay? C’mon. The presentations don’t last that long, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

Silence. A prolonged one. One that makes my heart sink and my gut curl around the organ tightly enough that it feels like heartburn.

“Fine. I’ll see you,” Ángel says, followed by a very abrupt robot voice saying, “Call ended.”

I sit with my phone pressed to my ear for one, two, three heartbeats before I draw it away and stare at it, feeling an odd stab of  _ something  _ in my ribcage, something that makes me hiss and flinch. It feels like pain, oddly enough, and I roll my eyes, decide that I really  _ am  _ having a case of heartburn, and start to get ready for what I can already tell will be a long, long day.

Predictably, later that morning when I  _ am _ at school, Ángel is all deadpans and no smiles. His eyes are closed-off and apprehensive and I push down the resigned, disappointed frown that wants to come over my face. “Hi,” I say to him somewhat brightly as I sit down at my desk in the Spanish classroom. “You ready?”

“No,” he grumbles, and then immediately shifts his attention back to his novel he’d been reading just a few seconds prior. When did the Spanish classroom become a second library?

_ When he decided you were in the dog house, _ my thoughts supply and yeah, I still don’t like them.

I sigh and resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Dude, you'll be fine,” I tell him, a little exhausted with how damn anxious he is, as well as how cold he’s being. I mean, of course, anxiety is valid and it's best that you don't do something if it really does make you freak out so much, but this isn't even that big a deal! Even though class hasn't even begun yet, I find myself glancing at the clock to see how much longer we have to be here.

A part of me is avoiding Angel’s cold shoulder, while the other just wants this to be over so I can get my best friend back and also prove him wrong. I’m petty like that, and I won’t change. Deal with it.

The teacher enters the classroom and closes the door as the bell rings, and then goes over the details of the project once again and that we are all expected to have a finished video today. I bite the inside of my cheek, ignoring all the mangled bits that taunt me and the scar tissue that I’ll reopen for kicks later today, trying to suppress my grin as I pull out my flash drive from my pocket that has the video on it. We're totally going to kick ass, and I will flaunt it.

My phone suddenly buzzes in my pocket. Tentatively, I take it out and peek at the screen.

**New message from Ángel at 9:21 AM**

**“i hate this so much and im this close to jumping out the window istg why did u make me come here”**

I sigh and quickly type a response, then shove my phone back in my pocket so the teacher doesn't yell at me.

**[9:22 AM]** _it's not gonna last that long okay calm yourself it'll be OKAYYYY_

I ignore the vibrations coming from my pocket, wishing I'd set the phone to silent before I put it back, and try to focus on the teacher. She's asking if there's anyone who wants to go first, and I know what's going to happen before it does.

True to form, not a single person raises their hand. I would, just to get it over with, but I can feel Angel glaring icy daggers into the back of my head, and I sense that a raising of my hand will translate into imminent death the second I leave this classroom. I happen to cherish my life, so I refrain from rolling my eyes and resign myself to waiting.

"If no one wants to volunteer, I'll just have to call on people randomly," the teacher warns, to the surprise of what must be precisely no one.

Two girls who sit in the front row exchange a quick, loaded look before one of them raises her hand. The teacher sighs in relief, and I can sense Angel doing so behind me as well. I'm not sure if I'm happy for him or just annoyed at the unnecessary delay.

As soon as their video starts, I suddenly realize this is going to be a very, very long class if we don't present right away. Our classmates have terrible Spanish skills, so I'll either be cackling or cringing the whole way through, and neither will win me points with my teacher. In this particular instance, it's cringing. I don't know what it is about the American accent and foreign languages, but it's awful. At least, to me and, from prior experience, the rest of my family.

I pull out my phone subtly once again and text Ángel, typing furiously.

**[9:27 AM]** _ DUDEEEEE can we please go next. I don't wanna have to sit through all of these awful videos... please…u can't tell me ur not cringing too _

**[9:27 AM] UGHH FINE** **  
** **[9:27 AM] whatever we’ll get it over with**

**[9:27 AM]** _thank you thank you thank you thank you_

**[9:27 AM] but i want it noted we’re doing this against my will**

**[9:28 AM]** _noted :/_

I breathe a quiet sigh of relief when the girls’ video is done. I'm not exactly thrilled at Ángel's evident lack of enthusiasm, which could lead to a silent lunch, but I'm willing to take my chances in order to escape this prison. When the teacher asks who wants to go next, I raise my hand so quickly my elbow creaks, wondering if Ángel is considering going back on his word. If he is and has texted me on the matter, I'll remain blissfully ignorant, since I had the foresight to put my phone on Silent to avoid having to deal with such a change of mind. Call me cruel, but I'm all business right now, best friend or not.

The teacher calls on us, thank fuck. I stand up and turn around to look at Ángel to ensure he is following me, feeling unsettled for whatever reason. It takes about 5 seconds, which weigh on me like Abuelita's rolling pins, and I hear some of our classmates snicker at Ángel's hesitance.  _ Shut the hell up, _ I want to yell, snarling and with the same fury I had put into my fists two years ago—but what for? I'd learned from experience that doing that only ever made it worse.

Ángel and I make our way to the front of the room, me with a clenched jaw and him like a man headed to the gallows. My best friend awkwardly stands by the teacher’s desk as she allows me to sit in her chair so I can open our video on her computer.

The whole while, I can feel Ángel's heavy gaze on me, and I'm not sure what I think about it.

* * *

“What was with you back there?”

I decide to waste no time asking Ángel what was up with him during the presentation now that Spanish class is over and we’re in the library for lunch together, which is a steady part of our routine at this point. I only realize after the fact that I probably could’ve tried to phrase my question in a way that didn't sound like I was accusing him of murder, though. Whoops. Let’s hope this doesn’t summon two-earbud Ángel, a demonic and frigid presence best left as nightmare fuel.

“Nothing,” he says immediately, voice as apathetic as his face. “I don’t like presentations, okay?”

My eyebrows furrow. I'm not upset or angry, and I'm really not trying to make it seem that way, but it's a little difficult, what with how easily my best friend switches to the defensive. Whenever we talk about things slightly more sensitive than what we had for dinner the night prior, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells and the slightest stumble will end with white shards crushed underfoot and digging into my soles, blood dyeing it all red. 

"It's just that you were acting like going up to present was the end of the world. Like, dude, I  _ know _ we're gonna get a perfect grade, okay? And white people think foreign languages are cool."

_****_“No todos. Algunos creen que hablamos en español para planear su asesinato,” Ángel retorts. [28]

_****_I pause. Damn. Good point. "Puede que tengas razón," I concede hesitantly, "¿pero no te importan esas personas, o sí?" I decide to join my friend in his decision to switch to his first language, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Si un gringo cree que estamos hablando español para planear su asesinato, que se vaya a la mierda." [29]

Angel sighs and stares at me for a bit, in that odd, clinical way of his that makes me feel as though he were appraising everything about me, measuring up my ultimate worth with just a few seconds of scrutiny. "Okay. You win." Then he picks his book back up, puts his headphones on, and becomes deaf and blind to the world.

I'm not exactly sure what he thinks I've won, or by extension, what he thinks he's lost. 

Ángel's reluctance to present our video to the class is something that lingers in the back of my mind even on my commute home.  _ Why does he hate the idea of presenting so much? _ Like, some people just don't like it or aren't good at it, okay, but geez. It's not like anybody was going to punish him if he messed or like I was going to leave him on his own.

I'm halfway through the living room upon arriving home, whistling and twirling my keys around my finger, when I hear the heart-stopping sound of curtains being pulled back and my mom's voice shouting, "WELCOME HOME!"

I jump like a startled cat and yell in terror, hands coming up as though to block a punch, but all I'm left with is a destroyed guard and a dangerously fast heartbeat when I see that the only thing to fear is my mom with an enormous smile on her face behind where my Abuelita's curtains should be. She looks like the Latina Chucky and I want to run right back out.

"What are you doing back there?" I exclaim, stopping short of yelling as I press a hand over my racing heart.

"I'll ask the questions," Mami immediately asserts, sliding into Cubana mode, and I start a mental rundown of all the things I could be in trouble for. She might have finally discovered the tin of cookies Abuelita and I hide from everyone else, or that I'm the reason her makeup palette always seems too worn—which, by the way, is  _ only _ because I use it to conceal any unflattering acne during the rare and sparse occasions that I find any. It's not my fault that I have the same skin tone as my mother, and it's certainly not my fault that puberty is so gross. "Why are all your things stuffed into your closet and hidden under your bed?"

Oh. 

Shit.

I open my mouth to answer but Mami interrupts me before I can even start, clearly not in search of an actual answer. "You just had your friend Ángel over, Papito. Did you really just hide all your things instead of cleaning your room before he came over?"

"He was coming over and I had, like, an hour," I defend, crossing my arms over my chest. "I didn't have much choice!"

"If you're going to invite a friend over, it's  _ your  _ job to make sure your room is flattering  _ before  _ you ask if they can come over," Mami says, leaving no room for argument. "You had better not do that again. Now go clean your room."

"But I have homework!" I say, pulling out the excuse I always use when I need to get out of whatever Mami is forcing me to do. That, and cello.

"Well, you had better start cleaning now so you can get to your homework later," Mami says, and I groan as I stalk off to my room. Even saying I had homework—which isn't a lie; I just don't have mountains of it, for once—didn't work. Which meant I was irrevocably screwed.

I set my backpack down on the floor and plop into bed, dragging a sigh from the very depths of my lungs and souls. I feel exhausted and the day isn't even halfway done. There's too many half-formed thoughts running through my head, too many questions that only lead to blank, dead ends. At least cleaning will be a distraction from all the twisted voices skulking through my mind, demanding my attention. I resign myself to my fate and pull out my phone one last time before I dedicate myself to Marie Kondo-ing my room. 

There's one text from Ángel—sent during Spanish class—that I didn't see, since I'd turned my phone to silent.

**[9:30 AM] wait no I changed my mind I don't wanna go next**

The thick gallop of saliva I swallow tastes a lot like guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Footnotes:**
> 
> 28 Spanish for "Not all of them. Some of them think we speak Spanish to plan their murder." [return to text]
> 
> 29 Spanish for "Well, you might be right, but those people don't really matter to you, or do they? If a white person thinks we're speaking Spanish to plan their murder, fuck 'em. [return to text]


	11. The Letterman Jacket I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex finds a surprising article of clothing in his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *joyfully skips onto AO3 holding 14 pages worth of fic in hand, smiling like an idiot*
> 
> HELLO HELLO HELLOOOOO! You'll notice that today's chapter ends in the letter I. Make no mistake--this is a Roman numeral. :))
> 
> This headcanon has existed for...many months now. I don't know if it's been a whole year yet, probably not. But I've been DYING to write the following series of events that you'll be reading over the next few updates. And now I finally get to share it with all of you!!!!
> 
> By the way, you might want to rewatch Season 1 Episode 8 of ODAAT before reading, in case you want a memory refresher. Or you could just dive right into the chapter--either one is fine. We cover the important part of S01E08 here anyways.
> 
> Enjoy reading as much as we did writing. We love you all.

**_The Letterman Jacket I: Alex Alvarez_ **

I've been at this cleaning-my-room thing for all of about two hours at this point, and I’m about ready to scream into a pillow, or something. This is getting beyond tedious and monotonous, both of which are things I don't care for one bit. In fact, I’d like to avoid them as much as humanly possible, and then some.

The sun's rays filter through the window way too softly for the middle of the day, making the dust particles dancing through the air visible in the light, like glitter or maybe snow. Not that I’d know much about either, in all honesty, but that’s besides the point. It's a sunny day, the kind that calls for laughter and sports and ice cream and sweet, sweet lemonade. It's a warm day, too, as proved by the fact that I almost roasted myself alive by continuing to wear my sweater—the temperature is plenty warm for just a T-shirt, and changing into one was a matter of life or death at that point.

Speaking of T-shirts, there's a mountain of them—along with jackets, jeans, belts, hoodies, and all these convenient, _messy_ little articles humanity is forced to wear—on my bed. Mami suggested—or, more accurately, ordered me—to put all my clothes on my bed so I can decide which of the ones that still fit me I like and want to keep, which ones I will donate, and which ones I'll throw away, depending on whether they look like rags or the clothes of a vagabond. She said it was to make sorting through them easier, but I think it was to make it so I can't sleep until I finish this damn job. Evidently, my smartassery came from somewhere. As did Elena’s undeniably evil scheming.

Man, I really should have run when I had the chance. 

I sigh, resigned to my fate, half-listening to my Abuelita's Spanish music coming from the kitchen as I take a seat in the chair at my desk, needing a moment to just breathe. It's 4:00 PM now, and I normally head to sleep at around 10:00 or 11:00, giving me about the same amount of time that a school day lasts to thoroughly clean my room. And it's Friday, so I can end up doing my homework tomorrow on Saturday morning without having to worry about an immediate due date tomorrow. Which means I have absolutely no viable excuse or trick up my sleeve to slide my way out of this one, which, therefore, means I am completely, totally fucked.

Yay, me. 

I let out a groan that contains the dregs of my very soul and kneel on the floor to look under my bed, just to check if there’s anything there. I might actually freaking lose my shit if I eventually manage to get everything in order, only to find more shit under my bed, so it’s better to fix the problem before it even becomes one. The underside of my bed is dark as a cave, so I pull my phone from my pocket and turn the flashlight on to get a better view of what the hell is in there. A few stray baseballs, a pair of _chanclas_ , and a battered shoebox.

That last item catches my attention. Shoeboxes did not belong under my bed where they could get damaged and ruined like that one clearly had, the cardboard crumbling at the corners. I immediately reach for the shoebox and pull it towards me, suddenly panicking. This had better not be an expensive pair of shoes I bought once and then never looked at again. The Jordans logo tells me that it might be, and I'm suddenly very worried at whatever past version of myself let this slip under my bed for so long. Or maybe it was one of the things I shoved under my bed the day Ángel came over, but I find that about as likely as Elena wearing heels. 

If this is a gorgeous pair of shoes that I never got to wear, I’m going to blow a damn gasket at my past self.

_Please don’t be a gorgeous pair of kicks, please don’t be a gorgeous pair of kicks, please don’t be a gorgeous pair of kicks—_

But then I open the shoebox, peeking one eye open warily, and what I find inside is much worse than a forgotten $600 pair of Jordans ever could be.

_Oh, fuck me._

My heart shrivels into a raisin and then proceeds to drop to the bowels of the earth as I take in the contents of this destroyed shoebox with horror. Memories come flooding back, the very same memories that overwhelmed me this morning when Ángel had asked me if I really never hated the way I looked in a photo or video before. A headache almost instantly begins to balloon inside my head, the pain feeling like it's eating my brain from the inside out. My temples pound so strongly that my vision all but blurs for a moment there, eliciting a sound somewhere between terror and pain. I could vomit right here, right now, right into this shoebox. Actually, I’m very surprised I don’t actually puke my brains out.

I can't bring myself to pick it up or even look at it again. The thing in that box feels like a grenade, a bomb, like it’ll kill me and everyone in the apartment if I so much as breathe in its direction. I shut the shoebox carefully, like it’s radioactive, and shove it back under my bed with more strength than strictly necessary as a sigh escapes me. This is no ordinary sigh, though—no, no, no. It’s a sigh filled with regret and a profound desire to take back the last sixty seconds of my life, a desire that is about three worlds too large for words. I miss how life was one minute ago, when I didn't know that thing still existed, much less still existed in my _own fucking room_. God, maybe it would have been better if I had somehow forgotten a pair of sweet kicks.

The shoebox contains the very first stash of weed I was ever given, plus the accompanying vape pen Finn had given me. In short, my biggest source of regret was sitting there innocently, reminding me of all my mistakes and, as though that weren’t incriminating enough, reminding me of how fucking _good_ it had felt.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ . Seriously? The one time I finally find where that fucking stash of weed went, it happens this week? On such a shitty week? No, scratch that—it happens when I’ve finally kicked the habit, buried the memory and crawled out of the hole and everyone that dragged me into it to begin with? _Fuck_.

I still remember when I realized it had gone missing—it was the first time my head felt really clear since I'd started to vape with Finn and his sluts, which was both a good thing and a very bad one. It meant I felt some guilt, a bit of regret, something that said I wasn’t turning into my father. But it also meant I was twitchy and felt like a live wire all day, like the slightest brush against me would set me off and throw my calm to the wind. It was like my heart had been wrapped in my guts and tied to a rock, which was subsequently thrown into the middle of the Pacific while I was required to keep going as though nothing had happened. Without a slight haze in my mind, the quiet lull that relaxed the tension and that filled the empty, empty space between my ribs and where my heart felt too small and insignificant, I was kind of...rough around the edges.

In the end, when I couldn’t find it, I thought Mami had found it, which terrified me to the bone, but she didn’t confront me about it, so I decided to just forget it and ask Finn and Mark for another stash. They brought me exactly what I needed the day after I asked at school, no questions asked and all business, as though they were giving me a movie instead of fucking weed. Looking back, they're actually disturbingly good at acquiring drugs. Like, no teenager—or adult, even—should know as much about getting it as they do. No one that doesn’t belong in the mafia, actually. Maybe Finn picked up a thing or two from his mother, who definitely took _something_ , what with all her...all of her.

Then, that new stash that they gave me _was_ actually found. I guess luck does run out, which explains why my luck after that was so damn rotten. Mami took away my phone and my civil rights, pretty much, and I wouldn't get it back until over four long, torturous months later. I was none too happy about her discovery, for more reasons than I could ever tell her face to face, and I have to admit I still vaped a little—a _little_ , mind you—with Finn and his sluts after I was grounded. It was a habit as easy as breathing at that point, a crutch I didn’t even notice I had adopted until it was taken away from me and I was left limping on a tender, wounded ankle. It was painful and messy and uncomfortable, like learning to walk all over again, and I didn’t like it. So instead of a crutch, I occasionally used a brace, and began to practice how to walk, slowly at first and with the brace on at all times. Then faster. Then I began to run, and when I didn’t fall and the pain didn’t kill me, I shed the brace, began to use it only when the ankle ached and gave out every now and then. It wasn’t great, was far from ideal, but it was the best I could do at that point. I was just letting off steam in the best way I knew how, and nothing was abnormal about it. It was fine.

Until Abuelita found the brace in Mami's clothing. Who would have thought seemingly harmless greens in a small plastic bag would cause so much trouble.

_“I'm sorry, Abuelita. I'll never do it again,”_ is what I said to her then, and I'd meant it. When I started vaping, I just did it to let off some steam, to chill out a bit. I just wanted to relax, to ease up a little. I _loved_ the way it felt, to be high. It made my worries and thoughts and pending assignments and all the other bullshit I didn't want to deal with go bye-bye. It was like getting hit in the head and blacking out, leaving all your troubles and stupid concerns behind as you went. It was great.

But even if there was a point in my life where I willingly, _happily_ smoked weed or drank with my awful, pieces-of-shit “friends”, there was never a single moment in time where I would've wanted Abuelita to find out. I knew she would— _did_ —hate it if I did that, and I never wanted her to hate me, never wanted her to be angry or disappointed, not of me, or think I was a bad kid, or something. _I’m not a bad kid!_ I had told myself multiple times in between vapes, enjoying the hot drag of smoke going down my throat and into my lungs, and then right back out, taking all tension and worries with it. _This is normal, and I'm just letting off steam. I can control it. It’s not like I need it. I'll be okay._

But I was just fooling myself, apparently. Ruined ankle and learning how to walk again, right? The reality of everything I had done, of every allowance I had made for myself and every day I had decided I could get comfortable with my crutch and my brace, of every single time I used the weed as a way to ease my burden—it all hit me like a pile of bricks the moment Abuelita was about to go upstairs to beat up my mother after finding the weed in her clothing, and for once I stopped making excuses for myself and blurted out, "Abuelita, it's mine!"

She had paused in shock, and then sat down in that chair for what felt like years. She didn't look at me. It was like, no matter what, she didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to see what I had become. As though she couldn’t bear the weight of what I had done, couldn’t look at me and see her Papito. As though I was someone else, someone she didn’t recognize or know.

That hurt the most.

I felt like I had betrayed her, like I'd suddenly gone against everything she ever stood for, like I wasn't her sweet little Papito anymore. I was a monster, a bad influence, a bad kid. Maybe I was only some of those things. Maybe I was all of them. Maybe not even one of them. Whatever I was or wasn't, it didn’t matter at all. All I knew is that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake, one that I didn’t know if I could fix, and one that I wasn’t sure I could walk away from. And then I knew that I would never, ever go back to my ugly little crutch, even if that meant I would trip into the mug a million times while trying to stay up on my feet. No brace, no weed, no vape, no nothing. I had to quit whatever this was, now and forever. I didn’t want to so much as _think_ about vaping ever again.

And now my former life, that awful version of me from the past, has come knocking at my door. There is literally a monster under my bed, taunting me and laughing at how stupid, how naive it was. I once read somewhere that the past gets lonely and it’ll be only too happy to chase you—in absolute, complete, and total earnest. It seemed like one of the most painfully real things I had ever heard in my life, right now. 

I take three deep breaths and resist the burning urge to burst into tears, because if Elena or Abuelita or Mami heard me, I was toast. There’s a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach and it makes me want to throw up. There goes my heart, sinking to the bowels of the fucking earth, taking my lungs with it. 

I find control of my limbs again and force myself to get off the floor and back on my chair, running my hands through my hair frantically. I want to lie in bed so, so badly, to curl up under the blankets and sleep until this headache, this nausea, these memories go away, until the past stops chasing me. But maybe it’s a good thing my bed is buried under my damn clothes right now, because the moment I close my eyes for a second too long, all I see are the memories of the nights we’d spend in Finn’s basement, hanging out with his brother and getting so high we couldn’t even see straight like a bunch of fucking degenerates.

It occurs to me that smoking the very same weed that’s made me feel like this would help me calm the storm of panic going on inside me right now, like some sort of twisted cycle. 

A familiar haze fills me, one that often comes with twitching fingers and fidgeting, with the restless need to move around. I wanted something between my fingers and then between my lips and then something down my throat and in my lungs. I wanted, wanted, wanted so bad I wanted nothing else. When I quit, there were headaches, days where I wanted to eat until I burst and days when I could barely stomach three bites. I couldn’t sleep, I snapped so easily that even being spoken to bothered me, and everything inside of me felt twisted and misplaced, like all my organs had shifted place without me noticing, and everything felt wrong and bad and terrible. I would chew on my lips as a hobby and lived in some dark corner of my mind where a voice said _do it, do it, do it,_ shut the voice up with music so loud that it made the headaches worse but the voice quieter. Constant give and take, constant compromise, constant tug of war—and then one day, poof.

Nothing.

And now the voice was back, saying _do it, do it, do it,_ and in some distant corner of my mind, I find a coherent thought and latch onto it: _I need to get rid of that damn box._

I begin a steady, panicked stream of four, seven, eight as I scramble back down on the floor to look for the box. I scrunch my eyes shut when my hands wrap around the rotten cardboard, feeling like I’m holding my doom in between my fingers. I pull it out, careful not to so much as rattle the lid this time around, and then I grab some of the plastic bags I’d filled with garbage previously and begin to head out, out of the apartment, out of the building, and out back where the garbage dumpsters are. I throw the bags and the shoebox in the dumpster with all my strength even though it isn’t necessary, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth. The horrible, disgusting stench that permeates the area from all the garbage piling up here makes me wince, but even still, it feels like what I threw away belongs there just as much as I do.

As I make it back to the apartment and into my room, squeezing and uncurling my fists periodically in order to make the twitching go away, I sniff my shirt, and to my displeasure, find it smells like sweaty ass now, thanks to the motherfucking garbage dumpsters. I grab my towel and immediately head for the bathroom, thanking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that no one is using it right now. They all know I would have lost my shit if that hadn’t been the case. 

Step in. Close the door. Pull off my shirt, shorts, all other clothes, tear off my shoes. Step into the shower and start the water immediately, out of fucks to give about the temperature, because all I want is for the rotten smell to leave, for the sickening sweet smell sticking to my fingers to fade away already. The water relentlessly beating down on me carries with it a merciless cold that scares the shit out of me, that assaults me almost more violently than the urge to grab, to inhale, to exhale and do it again—but it’s nice to feel something other than the astronomical levels of guilt and regret that are coursing through me right now, that are eating me alive like a tasty arepa.

I sit down in the shower, much like I did the day before the Valentine’s dance, and breathe. _Four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight—_

My head is spinning like a blender and I’m a little numb now, though whether it’s because of the cold or the way I have forced the panic out of my body, I don’t know. Fuck only knows for how long I’ve sat here in this bathtub, letting the ice cold water beat down on my body, slowly turning my caramel skin into an icy, wrinkled thing, like a raisin that everyone stepped on, but strÁngely enough, I feel better now. It’s like the water drowned my panic just as much as it chilled me to the bone, dragged the need for poison in my lungs down the drain, reminded me of all the reasons why I threw away the sweet, sweet smell in the first place with a cold, bloody punch.

Who knew feeling nothing felt so good.

I move for the first time in forever without registering it properly, water moving like it’s a pool I’m exiting, standing up in the shower and twisting to the left and right to crack my back. The sound my spine makes is incredibly loud and could probably be heard from the living room. Gross. Gross, and familiar, because cracking bones and stretching was a must if you wanted to get through sports without getting an injury that’d make you want to die from pain alone. Or so I’d been told, anyway, and I would rather not find out how much truth there was to that statement.

Then I decide to grab a shampoo bottle, squirt way too much into my hand, and get on with the personal hygiene that showering was meant for. Mom would kill me if I stepped into the shower and wasted water for God knows how long and left without even actually showering.

Besides, even if the sweet scent taunting me was gone, the stench of death and garbage was not, and I had enough to deal with without disgusting myself simply by breathing. 

I scrub so hard it aches, and then I scrub some more.

* * *

If I'm resorting to repeatedly, consciously telling myself "I feel better, I feel better" in my head, trying to speak it into reality, do I really feel better?

_Probably not_ , is the unfortunate conclusion I bend down to pick up an old St. Bibiana's sweater of mine that—judging by its size—I probably haven't worn since sixth grade. Or maybe seventh. I wasn’t exactly a tall kid back then. I ball it up and shoot it into the donation bin like I would a basketball.

Admittedly, all the shit that came up when I opened that damn shoebox has stuck around for the whole afternoon like gum sticks to your hair, and I can’t exactly cut the damaged area and forget about it. Feelings just don’t allow a clear-cut, easy way out of them. Unfortunately for me and the other 7.8 billion people in the world.

It's around 8:00 PM now—which means I have two or three hours until my curfew. The sun has slowly begun to set, stealing my now oh so placidly, and in an hour I'll have to switch from keeping the windows open to keeping my bedside lamp on so I can see in here. The insane mountain of clothes on my bed has now shrunk, thank fuck, and now at least it isn’t the fabric equivalent to Mount Everest. Instead of a singular pile, it's now four different mounds—one on my bed, one in the Keep bin, one in the Donations bin, and one in the Garbage bin. I'm almost done; after just a few more articles of damn clothing, I'll finally, finally, _finally_ be done and be able to flop on my bed again. Oh, sweet, sweet rest, how I pine after you. I'm exhausted, so I'll probably sleep like a baby, drop into my bed like a stone—but then again, the shoebox will also probably keep me up at night. Because exhaustion is nothing in the face of my mind and the voice. 

It's a coin toss, how good my sleep will be tonight. It’s always a gamble, nowadays. 

Against my better judgement and a voice that sounds suspiciously like Elena telling me I’m almost done, I decide to take a break, grabbing my earbuds and phone. I collapse back onto the floor and let out a long, exhausted sigh that seems more befitting an age-old wizard or something. God, this day has been a lot. Too much, even. First I had to do a school presentation with a sourpuss Ángel, who then reverted back to his more-assholey-than-usual ways, and _then_ I come home to find out that Mami has found out about my half-assed cleaning dayjob and she makes me spend the rest of the damn day correcting it. I deserve to nap for the entire damn weekend—no, scratch that, I deserve to couch-potato for a while! Anyone that dares wake me up is fucked—you’re getting stabbed.

And now I sound like Ángel. Great.

After my music break, which is brief and filled with boisterous music set loud enough to make Mami scream, I get back up, my batteries the slightest bit recharged, and finish going through the last articles of clothing. I exhale sharply once it’s all done, feeling the triumph fill me up like a goblet. I actually do feel quite accomplished, like I do after a good workout session or a good game—but I’m never telling Mami that. She doesn’t need to know.

The three bins I’ve been using are actually just big-ass laundry hampers, which makes my work a bit easier. I shove as much clothing in Donations pile as possible down into the laundry bin, so that it lays flat instead of like a mini-mountain. I’d like to avoid a catastrophe, thank you very much, and if I see one more mountain-like pile of clothing after this, I’ll go insane. I don’t need to be reminded of today ever again. I’d love to forget all about it, actually.

I pick up the Donations bin, trying not to grunt as I do, juggling the trash bag and all the cleaning supplies—why would she give me Fabuloso? Did my room get a kitchen sink without me noticing?—with it as I waddle outside of my room and into the hallway, determined to set this all down in the hallway and tell Mami I’m finished sorting through all my clothes when, through my peripheral vision, I see my doom coming at me 100 miles an hour in the shape of a black-and-yellow rug beneath my feet that I slip and fall on. _Shit!_ Way to make this day worse.

“Papito, are you okay?” Abuelita immediately comes rushing into the hallway, moving at an ungodly speed that no lady her age should be able to reach, no matter how much she claims to be a youthful young woman. 

I get back up on my feet quickly, clearing my throat. "I'm okay, Abuelita. I'm okay," I tell her, trying to avoid her launching into her panicked Papito-is-hurt mode. "I just tripped."

"Oh, well, be careful where you're going!" she exclaims, putting her hands on my cheeks. "I can't have __****_mi hermoso Papito [30] _getting hurt." She then kisses my forehead and rubs the rosary beads on her wrist before returning to the kitchen. That woman is going to dedicate a whole five mysteries to me just for tripping, I know it.

Not that I don’t love her for it.

I sigh as I pick up the stuff I've dropped—which didn't scatter every-which-way, thank God—and then I turn back to the wretched bumblebee-colored rug that caused my downfall. I grimace as I pick it up, glaring at it in a mix of resentment and disgust. In what universe could I have thought this was nice decor for my own bedroom? God, past me is one hell of a twisted guy.

I consider putting this in the trash instead of the Donations bin, to save anyone else from the horror of having this in their home. It’d be a terrible burden. But then again, maybe it’ll be useful as a rag or something. When I turn to put it in the Donations bin, however, and actually get a closer look at it under the hallway light, instead of the poor excuse for lighting going on in my room, my heart stops for a moment. My brain pieces together the reality of the situation bit by bit, and every piece of the puzzle that comes together brings with it another ounce of dread.

I realize it's not a rug when I see it has _sleeves._ Rugs do not have sleeves. _Jackets_ do. Then I notice it's inside-out, and the nasty feeling twisting around in my gut shrivels up further. Following my instinct despite the bad feeling eating me whole, I pull the sleeves out so I can see what it actually looks like, to see if it's worth keeping. Oh, it's a letterman jacket. But hey, it does look famil—

I don't know what an aneurysm is, logically, because if I did, the chances that I’d be alive to recall such a feeling are slimmer than Ángel’s wrist. But I think it’s safe to say I have something that counts as one when it all comes back to me. I feel like I've just found a second stash of weed under my bed. No, scratch that—I’ve found cocaine, a dead body and a murder weapon, the police are knocking on my door and I am standing naked and hungover with no memories of where the fuck I am and how I got here.

_Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—_

Immediately, like the police really are knocking on my door, I run back into my room and launch myself on the bed, grateful as fuck that it no longer houses half my closet so I can panic horizontally this time, and do so properly. Oh, fuck. Oh, _fuck. Oh, fuck._

How the actual _fuck_ do I still have _****__esa cosa del diablo?_ [31]

_"Josh Flores is coming over? He's the star of the baseball team!" I had begun screaming when I was twelve years old, a little scrawny kid who idolized Josh—because of how good a baseball player he was and how much the girls wanted him, and for nothing else, obviously—and Elena had just told me that he was her quinces escort. She had also just recently revealed that she might be a lesbian, and while I didn't really care, it still felt like too many bombs in a single week. "What to wear, what to wear?"_

_I'd subsequently spent several hours in the shower and then thoroughly embarrassed myself—in a way that surpassed even Elena’s uncanny knack to humiliate herself at gatherings—when he_ did _show up; I barely got to hang with him. But it was okay, ‘cause he had come to see Elena, but it also wasn't because it was more or less the only chance I ever had to be friends with him. I don’t know, it was weird and it didn’t make sense, puberty hitting and all._

_He had left behind his jacket—a black and yellow letterman jacket—in his haste to make his great escape, and I'd put it on and showed it off to Mami and Elena after he had left. It was way too big on me, a scrawny 12-year-old tween wearing a lean, athletic 16-year-old teenager's jacket. Of course it was oversized. It was warm, too, since he’d been wearing it until very shortly before he left, and it felt nice, weirdly enough._

I'd never realized he never came back for it, never even asked about it despite coming over numerous times afterwards.

I… I really kept this damn jacket. I kept Josh Flores’s goddamn letterman jacket for three or four _years_! It might've just been gathering dust in my closet, or picking up mold under my bed—I guess after I'd gotten over my phase of idolizing other baseball players, I'd decided to stop wearing it, likely shoved it away and quickly forgot it, moving on to more exciting and interesting things. 

"Papiiiiitooooo!" The abrupt sound of Abuelita's voice, elongating almost all vocals in the nickname unnecessarily, cuts through the shock permeating my mind. I—shocker—panic and shove the jacket back under my bed, then sit straight up, like someone shoved a stick up my ass.

"¿Sí, abuelita?"

“Do you want some ice cream?” I hear her footsteps coming towards my room and brush myself off, heading for the hallway. Abuelita stands right outside my door holding an ice cream scoop, the biggest smile on her face. Oh, what it must be like to be so blissful. “You deserve some after working so hard on cleaning your room.”

“Sure,” I say, desperate for a distraction after the weed and the jacket. Or maybe it’s comfort I want? I don’t know. The lines are blurry. “Thanks, Abuelita.”

She motions for me to come into the kitchen, where Elena and Syd are already at the table, sharing a bowl of cookies n’ cream. Walking past them and eavesdropping for all of five or six seconds, I can tell they’re having a debate over whether that one _Star Trek_ lady—her name had two numbers in it, if I remember correctly—is gay or not. I roll my eyes but also feel some strange kind of relief at the fact that there’s at least one thing near me that hasn’t changed at all. Syd and Elena: if nothing else, I can always count on them and their nerdy-ness to feel safe. I guess normalcy _is_ comforting after all.

But even after Abuelita hands me my ice cream and gives me a kiss on the forehead, and I’m sent to the dining table to enjoy my Rocky Road chocolate treat, my mind is still on that damn jacket. That damn weed. The ice cream tastes tepid as it melts on my tongue.

Younger Alex made so many terrible decisions, and now here they are, coming to bite me in the ass.

* * *

_It’s too damn cold to go to sleep._

This is the only coherent thought that makes it to the forefront of my mind, what with how hazy my mind is. I just woke up, and it’s pitch black in the room, and like hell do I know what time it is. Or if my alarm clock is even on right now. Or if I’m even alive right now.

I grumble and sit upright. For some reason, my blankets aren’t enough for me to keep warm when I sleep now. There aren’t any more in my room right now—I _did_ just clean out all the extra clothes and stuff I didn’t need, after all. Maybe I can put on a bathrobe, or my jacket. A sweater or something, just something warm that’ll get me through the night so I can take advantage of the fact that my mind has shut up and let me sleep for once, damn it.

Without opening my eyes, I get out of bed and get down on the floor, blindly feeling around for fabric. There was a jacket here that I didn’t throw away, thankfully, and I snatch it right up with a little hum. In a distant place in my mind, I’m reminded it’s Josh’s and that there is absolutely nothing good about that, but that thought doesn’t quite register as I slip it on, enjoying the instant feeling of being warmer. It’s still a little big and the fabric is thick and soft, and I’m immediately soothed.

I climb back into bed, every single muscle in my body relaxing as soon as my head hits the pillow. I pull the blankets over me and lie on my stomach, and let sleep overtake me immediately.

_We’re walking down the street on a snowy Christmas morning in Echo Park, and I’m pretty sure we’re laughing, the sound soft and intimate. My hands are in the pockets of the letterman jacket, hiding from the freezing cold biting at my fingers. I wonder how it’s snowing here in LA. It never snows. I’ve never seen snow before. It’s cold, and white, and fluffy. It’s pretty. Like glitter._

_“I really like your jacket,” he says, smiling somewhere between soft and playful._

_But the ungodly amount of snow also means it’s important to keep warm, which is why I’m out here wearing the letterman jacket. I can’t step outside for one second without my teeth chattering, and I begin to wonder why we’re outside in such cold weather to begin with._

_“Thanks,” I say to him, gently knocking our shoulders together. “I don’t remember where I got it. I think someone gave it to me.”_

_A pride parade passes us by, color and vibrance bursting everywhere in a way that makes something within me brighten up. There’s a Santa Claus wearing a rainbow Santa suit, waving to everyone passing by. All the gifts are color schemes of various pride flags, all of which I only recognize because of Elena’s own unwavering pridefulness. And the fact that she once sat us all down and gave us a lecture on all of them, aided by a very thorough PowerPoint presentation that held enough bullet points per flag to make Abuelita dizzy._

_He smiles at the parade, eyes glittering with something that seems like hope, something that reflects the snowflakes and the colors and the lights quite beautifully. “I want to go to Pride one day,” he shares, like it’s a precious secret. “But maybe when it’s warmer outside.” He’s hugging himself, looking like he’s trying to keep warm, laughing at his own joke._

_I frown. “Are you cold,_ _****_mi amor [32]?” _I ask him, true concern rolling off my tongue._

_He shakes his head, his hair bouncing all over the place whenever he moves his head. “No, I’m fine.”_

_I raise an eyebrow at the immediate clatter of his teeth. “Are you now?”_

_He rolls his eyes and then groans, the beginnings of a pout marking his lips. “Okay, so I’m a little cold. So what?”_

_“Baby, you’re shaking,” I point out. I notice that as the seconds go by, he appears to be getting even colder. The tip of his nose is pink now. His breath is visible. Wait—is his hair turning into icicles? They’re pretty, pale things that make somewhat of a crown around his cheeks, dusted red and white with snow that looks more like sugar before it melts on his skin._

_I sidestep closer to him as I pull off the letterman jacket. “No,” he says immediately, eyes widening._

_I laugh, and to my surprise, I don’t feel any colder now that I’m not wearing the jacket. If anything, I feel just as warm, feel just as safe and comfortable. I wrap him up in the jacket, taking care to adjust the collar and front properly, brushing his neck while I’m at it because I know I’m allowed to. His icicle hair disappears and his skin returns to its normal complexion instead of the flushed pink that comes with being freezing cold. He stops shivering, and his teeth stop clattering._

_He seems to blush, the crimson dusting his cheeks now a lovely thing, and then looks down at his feet as he stops walking. And since he stops, I stop too. I get the feeling that it’s always like this._

_Then he looks up at me, and his eyes are big and round and beautiful. His eyes, his eyes, his eyes, his eyes, his eyes. They reflect everything around him like mirrors, light up like headlights, shine like diamonds. It’s so breathtaking I could die. Those eyes are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, two big orbs that serve as the windows into his soul._

_And I’m so lucky I get to look through them every day. “Thanks,” he whispers, and it’s that smile again, except now it’s a little helpless, a little dazed._

_I pull him close to me, feel my lips quirk up to go with his. “Anything for you,_ _ ****_corazón.” [33] _Then my lips touch his, and I’m warm._

My room is bright as hell must be when all the sinners come in when I finally open my eyes. It’s very warm in here, warmer than it should be—the sun is up and the curtains have been fully opened, like I’m in a Disney film. My blankets suddenly feel much warmer than they did last night. I pull them off of me in confusion, making an odd sound and look down at myself—

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._

Did I put on that— _this_ —fucking letterman jacket in the middle of the night? When I woke up because I was cold? I gag and am thankful I don’t barf all over it as I pull it off and throw it back under my bed. Then I frantically rub and scratch at the skin of my forearms, upper arms, chest, back. _Jesus Christ,_ I wasn’t even wearing a shirt while I was sleeping last night. Why the hell didn’t I just put one on instead of _Josh Flores’ fucking letterman jacket?_

I nudge my forehead. I’m sweaty as hell and the surge of disgust is immediate and certain. I groan as I kick the blankets away and head out of my bedroom for the bathroom, not forgetting to grab my bath towel beforehand. I’m a man on a mission and my supplies are pivotal.

As soon as I’m inside, I lock the door behind me, throw the bath towel onto the bathtub, and then put both of my hands on the sink and stare myself down in the mirror. I look into my own eyes critically. They’re brown. They’re very, very brown. My eyelashes are also fairly long. My eyebrows are pretty bushy, and they’re furrowed. My eyes, eyebrows, and hair are all the same color—and so are the tiny hairs that construct the semi-visible mustache just above my upper lip. It’s not visible from a distance, but you can really see it up-close. It’s probably not enough to qualify as a mustache yet, something Elena has been abundantly clear and vocal about. My nose looks the same as it always has. I don’t have too much acne today. My hair is as messy as it always is when I wake up.

I’d once said to Mami that what helps _ground_ me is looking in the mirror, when we were talking about coping mechanisms and grounding and shit like that. She said grounding is when you’re panicked and in a state of anxiety and you need something to pull you back down to the ground, to bring you back to reality. While it can easily be dismissed as one of my signature narcissistic quips, looking in the mirror actually _is_ something I used to do a lot. It reminds me of the things I can and can’t see. What’s present in the room right now, what’s real, and what isn’t.

It reminds me of what is true, what I made up, and what lies somewhere in between.

I grab a comb and run it through my hair, decidedly ignoring the fact that that definitely makes no sense, considering I’m about to shower, but whatever. Who’s going to stop me? My reflection? I think not.

When I finally feel like my feet are on the ground again and I can breathe more easily, despite not even changing my breathing pattern to that thing Elena taught me, I head to the shower to get the water running. Take a shower, eat breakfast, then maybe text Ángel to gain his forgiveness or look through Netflix to see if there’s anything new worth watching, which is unlikely. It’ll be okay. Everything’s going to be _fine._

I’ll decide what to do with the letterman jacket later, maybe. I can’t even tell you how tempting it is to go out to the same dumpster I threw my weed away in with the damn thing in hand, but I’m not sure that’ll fly quite as well as in the first scenario. It’s someone else’s property, somehow, even if it hasn’t been in his possession in years. It doesn’t feel like it’s _my_ jacket. Hell, it really _isn’t._ Josh came here once and left his jacket behind, and he never asked for it back. It’s still his jacket, no matter how many years have passed since he left it here. And using that logic, I can’t put it in the donations bin either since it’s not _mine_ to donate. Shit.

If it’s his, then should I _give it back to him?_ No, that’s way too creepy. “Hey Josh, I just found this jacket that I kept after you left in my room. How weird! Here, you can have it back now.” Absolutely not. Does Elena even still have his contact info? As far as I know, they didn’t really keep talking after the quinces happened. Besides, if he left his jacket here and he never even bothered to come back and pick it up, then maybe he didn’t care about it too much. He’s likely forgotten it ever existed. Hell, maybe he had a closet full of letterman jackets and he’s just doing fine. Who am I to judge?

I can’t start wearing it again, either, despite how admittedly cool the design is. Elena would probably recognize it, not to mention Mami. Maybe Abuelita wouldn’t. The only people who wouldn’t recognize it are either Ángel, or—I don’t know, Syd or Avery. Even Schneider might recall where it came from.

I groan. I’m in a pickle. To put it very nicely.

It would seem the only option is keeping it hidden away in my room and hoping the same demons that come into my room to steal my socks steal the jacket, too. _Maybe I’ll fill the pockets with socks, and see if that baits them._ Before I know it, the cursed thing will be gone and I’ll only have to deal with yet another of Mami’s scoldings about missing socks and careless organizing of my dirty clothes.

I shake the meaningless thoughts away as I pull my clothes off and step into the shower, running a hand through the wet thickness of my hair. The discovery of the letterman jacket is a weird, creepy thing I wish had never happened, but it’s also a problem Future Alex will have to solve. So I stop thinking about it when the water hits me and causes my hair to droop like a blanket over my eyes.

_Future Alex problem,_ I repeat, trying once again to breathe it into existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Footnotes:**
> 
> 30 Spanish for "my beautiful Papito". [return to text]
> 
> 31 Spanish for "that thing from the devil". [return to text]
> 
> 32 Spanish for "my love." A term of endearment for a romantic partner. [return to text]
> 
> 33 Spanish that literally means "heart". A term of endearment for a romantic partner. [return to text]


	12. The Letterman Jacket II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena and Syd do not learn from their past mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE SO SORRY.
> 
> We know we were supposed to post on Saturday, but we can explain! ~~Not that any excuse is a good one ashlkaghkksh~~
> 
> I'd been dealing with a lot of writer's block, and so I didn't start Really Writing until the week of posting. I finished the initial draft two days before we were supposed to post, and Gab didn't have a lot of time to edit, so we decided to miss our schedule again.
> 
> We REALLY hope this is worth the wait. Hopefully the next chapter will come about quicker than this one did. We love you all and thank you so much for continuing to read <3 Here's part II of The Letterman Jacket!

**_The Letterman Jacket II: Elena Alvarez_ **

**[9:48 AM] so how’s alex doing?**

One single, simple, oddly short text from Syd is what causes me to falter; the fun and easy-going conversation we’d been having over text moments ago dissipates along with my smile, as I start to ponder the state of my brother’s overall well-being yet again.

That may sound excessively overdramatic, but I have an _abuelita_ who wakes up every morning and starts her day off by pulling her curtains back and standing in the middle of the entryway between her bedroom and the living room for several minutes as if she’s on the set of a TV show, absorbing the wild applause the in-studio audience is showering her with. Then she goes into the kitchen to either help Mami make breakfast or just make it herself, depending on how stressed out my mother is. My brother isn’t too different, actually. While no one could ever live up to the dramatic, eye-catching standard my grandmother sets, Alex definitely got his love of the spotlight from her, a trait I clearly did not inherit. This entire family is in love with dramatics, in some form, and the stereotypes forced upon us by the patriarchy aside, it’s apparently hediritary. 

However, recently, it has seemed more like Alex is even less confident than _I_ am, which is simply insane. I mean, it’s no secret that ever since I came out of the closet, I’ve become a little bit more comfortable in my self-identity, but Alex is another level of _security,_ another level of cool. He probably came out of the womb holding a mirror, checking himself out. He’s one of the most fearless people—no, _the_ most fearless person—I’ve ever met when it comes to asking girls out. And ever since the incident a year ago when I had to tell Alex the story about Syd and I and the creeps on the bus to convince him honking Chloe’s boob was wrong, he’s been able to handle a girl turning him down incredibly coolly. Don’t get me wrong—if Alex really has his eyes on a girl, he won’t just give up on the first try, but he _will_ back off if the girl makes it clear she’s uncomfortable or annoyed. It’s actually so cool and refreshing to watch: a straight guy respecting a girl’s boundaries instead of turning into a whiny baby when he gets turned down. Doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should—which is, obviously, always.

All of this contributes to the exact reason why Alex has been living in my mind without paying rent, more or less. You see, here’s the thing: I haven’t seen him ask out a girl in _weeks._ In fact, I haven’t seen him so much as look at one or even just talk about how hot _x_ celebrity is. He doesn’t walk around with any of his friends anymore—which, frankly, is most definitely a good thing. It’s not like they were the best influence on him or even slightly decent human beings, but the problem is, it doesn’t look like he’s found a replacement for them just yet. I know a ton of people in his grade who would die to be friends with him because of how seemingly popular and handsome and cool he is—how can it be that he hasn’t found another group of people—no, scratch that—a _single_ person to sit down and eat lunch with?

 _Eating lunch._ That’s another thing: I haven’t seen him in the school cafeteria as of late. Or in the basketball court, for that matter; I swallowed my pride and headed there after a week of Alex doing the best disappearing act of the decade—Papi took the century title—during lunchtime, only to find Finn and his shitty friends, but no Alex. _Could he be skipping lunch?_ The thought has occurred to me many times before, but I always shrugged it off, because if the thought of Alex having no friends and not eyeing girls up was odd, then the thought of him losing his appetite was not only _crazy_ , but downright inconceivable. And moronic. Not to mention impossible. Did I already say it was crazy? Because it is.

To put it bluntly, food is one of the most important things in the world to him, especially when it’s _abuelita’s_ cooking. In fifteen very, very long years we’ve lived together, I’ve never once seen him get up from the dinner table without finishing his food, even when he isn’t a particularly huge fan of the food. Or when he’s seriously upset. Or even not particularly hungry. __****_Siempre come bien [34] _ _,_ as Abuelita would often say.

If the reason Alex isn’t in the cafeteria any longer is because he’s skipping lunch, that’d be something more concerning than that one time that he sprained his ankle and then pretended he was fine for twenty four hours while his ankle swelled to almost four times its size. Which would mean that the situation would be a code brown, red alarm, all-units-to-one-location kind of dire and my new priority in life would be to fix whatever it is that Alex is going through. Even if that means becoming a magical fairy that dances and sings in order to transform into a frilly dress with a staff that gives me superpowers. 

But that may be tougher than anyone that hasn’t met an Alvarez might think; all of us are generally of the same school of thought—feelings must be treated in the same way _chiripas_ are; killed on sight and never discussed. However, Alex takes it to another goddamn dimension, ignoring his feelings like one would a tantruming child, and then acting the fool. Remember the sprained ankle incident? Yeah, case in point. 

My counted attempts at a serious, slightly emotional conversation with him have only been met with eye-rolls, fits of angry Spanish profanity, groans, and sometimes even flat-out being ignored. It’s like trying to talk to a screaming toddler, almost. Or a brick wall. Or a 30-year-old white man.

All those apply equally well.

 _The Valentine’s Day dance._ I shudder, grimacing at my wall. That event was an even better example, being the oh so perfect representation of all my anxieties about Alex. He had acted so wildly out-of-character, refusing to divulge the slightest of details about what happened to me, his own sister. “I have to hide from my girlfriend,” he’d said. 

Hide. From his girlfriend. Since when were those two things supposed to exist within the same sentence, much less make sense? Because I sure as hell hadn’t gotten the memo. Maybe it got lost in the mail. Or maybe I _wasn’t_ crazy and I _wasn’t_ deluded and Alex was fucking _lying_ to me and something was up, _clearly—_

**[9:53 AM] u still there?**

I blink, snapped out of my trance when my phone buzzes in my hand. _Oh, I left Syd on read. Shit-fuck. Fuck-shit._

 **[9:53 AM]** _Hey, sorry!!_  
 **[9:53 AM]** _It’s just that, I was thinking about that question you asked me—“How’s Alex doing?”—and honestly I don’t know how to answer it. I haven’t really spoken to him in a while, and he’s not hanging out with any of his friends anymore...he’s just been really sullen and quiet._  
 **[9:54 AM]** _I mean, you remember how he was at the dance, right?_

 **[9:54 AM] yeah i do remember** **  
****[9:54 AM] nothing’s changed since the last time we talked about him?**

The last time Syd and I had actually talked about what the hell was up with Alex, in depth and extreme detail, was the day after the dance, right after Mami rightfully grounded his ass after he yelled at and called me _una puta gringa comemierda._ Not even Tia Mirtha and Abuelita called each other such horrendous things. It had hurt, but mostly, I was confused. Why had he reacted so harshly, with such volatility, to something so small? Comparatively, anyway. There were just so many things that happened at the dance that I had questions about, all of which have thus far gone completely unanswered. In fact, I now have even more questions, if anything at all.

Why hadn’t Alex cared about his girlfriend _cheating_ on him, especially when it was with his supposed best friend Finn? Who was that boy Alex was talking to near the end of the dance? How come they drove the boy home? Why? What did he and Mami talk about in the car? And, perhaps the most urgent question currently plaguing my mind: _why_ is Alex so reluctant to talk about any of this?

 **[9:55 AM]** _No, not really. I mean, I’ve been busy writing my college essay, as you know_  
 **[9:55 AM]** _So our lack of time together is partially my fault, but honestly I haven’t noticed Alex leave the house very often. So if anything, *he* would have the time to talk to me, right?_

 **[9:55 AM] im pretty sure ur brother doesnt like to talk tho** **  
****[9:56 AM] about serious stuff, at least**

 **[9:56 AM]** _Yeah, exactly. That’s the problem right there_  
 **[9:56 AM]** _If he were more open about his feelings life would be better for all of us, first of all_  
 **[9:56 AM]** _And second of all, it’s like he doesn’t even like to talk casually anymore. Travel back in time a year, you’ll see he’s WAY more social than he is now. You’ve known him for years! Think about it!_

 **[9:58 AM] oh damn** **  
****[9:58 AM] u rite**

 **[9:59 AM]** _See? I rest my case._   
**[10:00 AM]** _Just kidding, no I don’t. Not until I find out what’s up with Papito._

“Elena, would you go wake up Papito?” Mom asks, a tired note in her voice as she serves my breakfast. “He’s normally up by now.” 

“Sure,” I say, mentally setting a reminder to help with the chores after I finished my essay. Mom was exhausted. Grabbing my phone that was just on the kitchen table a moment ago, I sent another text to Syd:

 **[10:00 AM]** _I’ll be right back_

Then I stick my phone in my back pocket and get up to go to my brother’s room.

I sigh, wondering when things will feel like they’ve gone back to normal between my brother and I. I hate feeling uncertain, hate not knowing, and I positively despise this unknown limbo we're currently on. I miss the hyperactive, happy-go-lucky, fearless-and-flirtatious being he once used to be. He was a bit much and he got annoying fast, like all little brothers do, but he was happy. I'm not sure he is now.

I’d bet money that he misses that version of himself, too.

“Alex?” I say, knocking on the door and opening the door up slowly.

My little brother is still asleep, which makes him look as little as he actually is for once, curtains wide open. The sun is pouring into the room blindingly, which suggests that Alex either didn’t get a very good sleep last night and is making up for it by sleeping in—which wouldn't surprise me—or that the sun has already woken him up and he’s trying to get in a few extra minutes of sleepytimes. He seems to need them lately, going to bed earlier and waking up later. The fact that his blanket is pulled up over his head, covering his entire body completely like a twisted taco, seems to more or less confirm the latter.

What matters isn’t how good a sleep he’s gotten, or how well he's been sleeping or if he's even been able to sleep at all as of late, though. What matters is that he needs to wake up for his breakfast and I need to make sure that he does.

“Alex,” I say loudly, putting aside any soft feelings. My voice—its volume, especially, or so I've been told—cuts through the aura of sleepiness and tranquility that permeates the room, through the small pocket of peace. I put my hand on his shoulder, through the blanket, and shake him a little.

No response. Not even a little mumble or a grunt. Not even a twist. Nada.

“Aleeeeex,” I whine with three notes of frustration, as I yank the blanket clean off of him, letting the heavy fabric fall to the floor.

I’m unable to decide whether or not pulling the blanket off was a wise choice, because I'm too busy trying to remember how to inhale.

My jaw doesn’t just hit the floor, no; it busts through the floor and every floor below the one our apartment lies on, and hits the floor of the apartment building’s lobby. It digs into the carpet there and then into the concrete, through pipes and dirt and all the way to the bedrock of the earth, Minecraft style. The air has been knocked clean out of my lungs like I got a mighty ball to the chest, as a dormant cluster of neurons hidden within the deepest recesses of my brain lit up like a Christmas tree, forcing a long-forgotten memory to the forefront of my mind. And with that memory, my gay little mind, which harbors at most two functioning brain cells, magically puts two and two together and I arrive at a conclusion with little to no evidence to back it up, save for the article of clothing my brother is wearing in his sleep right now. 

Which, logically, meant it was the only possible scenario. 

If Alex slept in, it means he got little to no sleep overnight. Reasons for this event range from insomnia to anxiety to staying up and playing on your phone to _sneaking out_ . That last option seems beyond ridiculous, especially after Alex's punishment for acting out before; until one ascertains the former _owner_ of the specific jacket my brother is donning presently, that is. Besides, I know Alex isn’t exactly one to follow any sort of rules or orders with religious zeal, even if the Queen of England was the one dishing them out, so I wouldn’t put it past him. Which is to say, he's one of the people that believe rules were made to be broken and it's his God given duty to live by this holy philosophy.

My little brother is currently asleep on his back like a baby, his head resting on the pillow and angled towards me. He’s wearing basketball shorts and, predictably, no socks. None of this is unusual, although it is very disappointing, except for his black-and-yellow jacket with an _incredibly_ familiar design that I’ve only ever seen one other person wear before: Josh Flores. He wore that jacket every single day to my house, heat be damned, while we were practicing the choreography—execution method—Abuelita deviced for us, so he could be an adequate _quinces_ escort for me. It’s been power-washed into my mind permanently like heavy-duty ink. There’s no way I’d ever forget what it looked like or who it belonged to or how it looked on him, especially since my _quinces_ was such a… _chaotic_ period of time in my life, to put it nicely.

I’d just started coming out of the closet, slowly unveiling the true identity of the stars of my romantic daydreaming to each member of my family. Most times it went over well; really well, actually. And then one time it didn’t, and one time I was actually _outed_ —but it was my little kid brother, just as confused as me, who let the truth slip, so I’ve forgiven him. What else was there to do? He was harmless, was apologetic, was largely innocent of any crime other than being a dork and having a very loose mouth.

Every time I came out to another person in my family—first Alex, then Schneider, Carmen, Mami, Abuelita, _Papi—_ I felt this huge, oppressive weight lift off my shoulders, like a planet's mass had been taken off my chest. But the relief was always momentary, always snuffed out like a candle in a windy night in a shitty horror movie. Because every time I was able to get coming out to _one_ person over with, suddenly this huge burden would crash down upon me once again when I realized I still had to do it all over again, out to _another_ person. Admitting something so deeply personal and stigmatized, something that made my goddamn father hate me? That can take a lot out of a person, and it sure as hell took a lot out of me.

It nearly took everything out of me, actually. 

Then, as the actual _quinces_ came closer, like a looming threat, an unstoppable disaster, a tornado warning that left everyone on edge—Papi came home, and all of a sudden, every single weight I _thought_ had lifted off my shoulders returned, and this time they were all ten thousand pounds heavier. Coming out to Abuelita was _nothing_ compared to coming out to Papi. Which was _something_ , considering Abuelita was at least half a century older than Papi. For one thing, Papi and I honestly barely knew each other. The knowledge dug into me like an angry cat or a very angry Latina, claws drawing blood, but it was true; he didn't know me as Elena but as his little girl, he one that barely reached his waist and smiled toothily. We had nothing in common, never really did—I always found it so difficult to carry on a conversation with him longer than two words, to actually talk instead of just speaking. I settled into my role comfortably, let Alex do most of the talking; _he_ was always the one who actually _wanted_ to see him, anyways. He was the one that seemed to fit together with him so seamlessly.

Of course, after I _did_ come out to him, everything just kept going downhill like a freaking landslide. It was not a peaceful time, nor was it a particularly happy one.

Alex sleeping with the blanket covering his entire body like he was a corpse definitely wasn’t a mistake, in that case. He _must’ve_ known I would’ve recognized the jacket! The boy may be an idiot, but he’s not stupid. He slept with the blanket over him to prevent _me_ from seeing it! And there’s also the _awfully_ curious fact that the jacket isn’t buttoned up, exposing some of his stomach and the skin of his chest. He isn’t wearing a shirt underneath it, bare except for the thick fabric of the jacket. Oh, what a sneaky little bastard— _but not sneaky enough._

He’s asleep, half naked and wearing only another boy's jacket. He’s not waking up to the morning sun, suggesting he snuck out. The letterman jacket belongs to Josh Flores. He’s been so closed off and silent lately, like he hasn’t been himself. Like he's been distracted by something. Or _someone._

My brother Alex is dating my _quinces_ escort Josh Flores.

The barrage of evidence and subsequent conclusion all hit me like a damn brick in the span of one split second, and I almost trip over my own feet despite standing perfectly still. I break my fall by putting my hand down on Alex’s nightstand before I hit the ground, glasses sliding down the bridge of my nose and teetering on the tip precariously.

Then Alex stirs.

My heart leaps up into my throat and stays there in an attempt to asphyxiate me while my eyes widen comically, holding my breath and praying for the first time since my _quinces_ that Alex won’t wake up. God hasn't been known for answering many of my prayers, but this time around, He cashes in some of the favors He owes me. Alex turns sluggishly, curling up on his side, his back facing me. It looks small. He isn't awake.

 _Thanks, God._ I send a little prayer up to the boss above and cheer.

Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, I exhale through my nose, forcing myself to be quiet. I don't need another coronary scare, thank you very much. Slowly, I stand up straight—not that standing _straight_ has ever been my strong suit, ba-dum tiss.

I blink, taking two slow steps back, and Syd’s text from earlier this morning— **so how’s alex doing?** —slithers back into my head like the snake in the garden. _Syd!_ We could try to work together to get to the bottom of this, to ascertain the facts. Find out if my hypothesis is correct, and whether or not Josh and Alex are actually dating. 

_Find out whether or not Josh and Alex are actually dating._

This feels an awful lot like déjà vu.

Two years or so ago, Syd and I had carried out a very similar to the one currently on our hands. Alex was constantly texting someone and giggling at their messages like a maiden in love, and they were saved as “P”. Convinced P was a girl, I dragged Syd into my mischief and we both drove Alex up the wall with our insane searching. P, however, turned out to stand for none other than “Papi," and the fact that Alex had secretly been spending time with our father in secret wasn’t a nice revelation for me in the slightest. It’d made me wish I had never investigated in the first place. I was bitter, angry— _betrayed_. How could Alex just go back to him, hang out with him like nothing happened, when he'd abandoned me?

But it _did_ eventually lead to a nice place, all things considered. Alex wasn’t hanging with Papi because he was upset at _me_ for resenting him, or because he agreed with his point of view on my sexuality, or any other equally dumb and shitty reason. He was just trying to fix our relationship, to get Papi to understand what he had done wrong, to get our father to get his head out of his ass. Now, Papi and I don’t have a perfect relationship—and I’m still angry at him because of a lot of things, and so frustrated about all these things he doesn't ever understand—but it’s not the same. It’s less intense now, because now it feels like _just maybe_ Papi is actually trying to make things right with me. It feels less like the end and more like a new, tentative beginning. 

I bite the inside of my cheek as I cross my arms and stick my nail between my teeth, trying to decide what to do.

Talking to him? Yeah, no; he'll jump out the window if he has to, so long as he avoids the conversation. Talk to Mami? The idea makes me shudder; she'll freak over Alex having a secret boyfriend without telling her. Abuelita? The whole family will know by dinner. Schneider? I'd have better luck discussing this with the raccoon in the park two blocks over.

I bite my nail in frustration, stopping short of snapping it at the last second, mentally cursing myself. Damn it, I thought I'd kicked the habit. Clearly not. I carefully, slowly remove my nail from my teeth and take three slow, measured breaths. I'm okay. This is okay. I'm doing fine, have been for a while. I can't go back on my progress without putting up a fight.

Then, a thought strikes me and my phone is out of my back pocket before I can think twice, turning down the volume and snapping a quick photo of Alex sleeping with the jacket on. I need proof this ever happened, because Lord knows a fully-awake Papito would deny everything. In fact, he'd probably claim dementia on my behalf and throw me in the __****_loquero [35]_ before I even got to prove my point.

My phone goes back in my pocket immediately after and, thoughts put to rest for the moment, I walk over to the end of the bed, grab his blanket carefully and drape it back over him ever so gently, not daring to breathe through my mouth or my nose even once. That only earns me a light head and aching chest, lungs begging for oxygen I only allow back in once I tip-toe out of his room. As soon as the door shuts, so slowly I want to die, I finally breathe and lean against the wall, breathing heavily. Damn.

Mami is at the dining table when I wander back in, her eyebrows furrowed. “What happened?”

 _Oh, how to respond?_ _'Oh, hey, mom, it's nothing, Alex just has a secret boyfriend, what's for breakfast?'_ Yeah, somehow, I don't think that's going to fly.

“Um… he said he’d be up in a bit.” I hope, for my date night with Syd, that this is true—after all, it _is_ past 10:00 AM now, and he _was_ stirring. “He just needs a few more minutes of sleep. He didn’t get a great sleep last night.”

Mami’s look of concern doesn’t dissipate at my words, hardly even budges. She gets up from her chair and starts walking over to Alex’s room, and the ball of anxiety in my stomach grows larger, twists up further. I can’t tell if Mami finding out about the letterman jacket would be a good thing or not. There’s actually a good chance she won’t remember it at all, but then again, she seems to remember a lot about those days.

She pokes her head into Alex’s room and gets a look at him under the blanket, brows furrowed as her Nurse Look comes over her eyes. She stares at him a moment until she decides, shutting the door carefully.

“It’s not a school day. He can sleep, but not past 11:00.” Then she turns to me and looks me in the eye as she walks back to the dining room. “Make sure you tell me if he’s not awake by then.”

I nod and then head back to my room, barely able to contain the burning urge to text Syd back about everything that just happened. This is _huge_.

 **[10:08 AM]** _Syd, I’m going to need your help_  
 **[10:08 AM]** _I think my brother is dating a boy!!_  
 **[10:08 AM] You** sent an image from your Camera Roll to **Syd.**

* * *

My bedroom feels warmer than it usually does, bordering some place between blisteringly hot and underwhelmingly cool, but considering the urge to gnaw on my nails has gotten bad enough, persistent enough that I'm flexing my hands continuously—I think it's just me sweating a little more than usual due to nerves. I squeeze my Sydnificant other’s hand tight, tight, tighter as we look over the checklist Syd has written out on their phone, quadruple checking that we have absolutely everything necessary to successfully carry out our plan. There was no room for failure and no room for error.

  * Disguise for me, even though Josh has no idea what I look like, because we're better safe than sorry
  * AirPods
  * iPhone
  * iPhone charger, even though Elena’s phone is at like 90%
  * Bag of snacks for me
  * Discreet notebook so I can take notes
  * Pen/pencil



After I had filled Syd in on the details of Alex sleeping with the letterman jacket—and also sent them the photo of him I took, along with some ranting that went perhaps off topic—we formulated a decent plan to ascertain whether or not Josh and Alex were dating; without Alex knowing, obviously. That was _not_ a conversation I wanted to have anytime soon, especially with the guy who'd cursed my existence like two weeks ago. We came to the conclusion that one of our greatest mistakes back in our days of trying to uncover P's identity was that we made it approximately 98% too obvious that we were actively searching, to Alex, no less. I had been following him around with my phone, listing off P-names, discussing the possibilities right in front of his face. If we weren’t more discreet about it this time around, with some experience on our backs, Alex might go to further lengths to cover his tracks in regards to whatever it is he’s doing. So, we’ve decided to go about our sleuthing without telling Alex at all, and with as much caution as two teenagers can proceed with.

The first phase of the plan was to find out if Josh still went to St. Bibliana and how he was doing. I hadn’t really heard from him ever since the _quinces,_ but I thought that maybe he still went to my school, since we were in the same grade and transfers weren't exactly common, especially in the last years. I asked around at school, inquiring about his name here and there, and someone gave me his Instagram username, so I direct-messaged him, asking how he had been and saying it’d be really cool to catch up if he wanted to. Writing those messages was the weirdest, most bizarre thing I’ve ever done, by far. I have no idea how to talk to people other than my family or Syd, and talking to a neglected friend—can he even be considered a friend?—was like talking to a math test made into a person.

I exhale, flexing my hands faster and decidedly ignoring the little voice whispering about biting my nails, and then turn to my Sydnificant other in their disguise. They’re wearing a chest binder with an inconspicuous white polo shirt, coupled with a soft red sweater and jeans, their hair is tied back up in a bun which I had hidden in one of my beanies. Syd insisted on wearing a disguise even though there would be no one at the café that could possibly recognize them; Josh and Syd are—and were, in his case—important parts of my life, but they were the stars in different acts and it left its mark. I decided to humor them, always happy to give back a little for the genuine catch they were, and after going shopping at a few thrift stores and giving the employees a headache with our antics, we ended up piecing together this slightly more masculine, semi-androgynous outfit that Syd could blend into the background with.

I'd been a little concerned over whether they'd feel comfortable in the clothes, if they'd feel their skin crawl or would be unable to breathe quite as well as usual. But they'd beamed when I stuttered the worry out and said it was fine, was fun. I was less worried after that.

Blinking back to reality, I bite the inside of my cheek and convince myself blood is better than parasites. “You all ready?”

They nod, lively as ever. “Yeah. All that’s left is to set up Live Listen and then we're good to go.”

 _ ****_AirPods and my iPhone, two cursed gadgets I feel very bittersweetly about, are essentially the two most pivotal tools for this mission. Apparently, iOS has a very creepy and potentially dangerous—albeit useful, in this scenario, though that doesn't mean I won't protest how it blatantly goes against the basis of civil rights later—feature known as Live Listen, in which you connect your AirPods to the device, and voila, you can hear everything your iPhone microphone is picking up. Since the AirPods function on Bluetooth and are wireless, as well as small enough to slip by unnoticed so long as you aren't completely lacking in brain cells, you could theoretically sit from a reasonable distance and listen in on the conversation two people are having without either of them knowing. You could find out government secrets, whether Alice cheated on Magnus, the Oscars' secret recipe, even whether or not Sonya two towns over really was a trophy wife of the Russian mob. All you’d have to do is hide your phone. [36]

The possibilities are endless and, quite frankly, beyond terrifying.

I’m going to leave my iPhone out on the table, which shouldn’t look too suspicious because everyone has a phone and all the white people leave it in clear view as though politely requesting to get mugged, while Syd sits at a nearest table wearing the AirPods and taking notes whenever they hear something that seems important. Even the least relevant of things that catches their ear will go on the paper, and it'll probably be a detailed account of things that will lead nowhere, all containing one magical sentence that will hold to key to all our queries. They’ll also be munching on a bag of Cheez-Its because of course they will. This is Syd and if I ever get married to tell the patriarchy fuck off, it's them I'll marry. This plan is foolproof, really.

My phone suddenly buzzes with a text from Josh, making me jump:

**[1:30 PM] Omw to the cafe. Can’t wait to see u there!**

I exhale sharply, clench and unclench my jaw. “You ready?”

Syd nods enthusiastically. “Definitely.”

I peek my head out of my bedroom door, eyes narrowed warily. Alex’s bedroom is right across the hallway from mine, so if both our doors are open, we could see into each other's rooms and discover deep, dark secrets. I look into his room to remind myself that he’s not here, and that I can't get cold feet now. Getting caught would more or less foil our entire plan, but no pain, no gain. It would obviously be bad if he caught us snooping _and_ we were right, because he’s going to claim that he needs his privacy and other bullshit excuses like that and then he’ll resent me—which is ridiculous and immature but hey, Alex isn't exactly Spencer Reid. But at the same time, if we got caught and we were _wrong_ —as unlikely as Schneider changing his weird ways—he'll get all mad and resent me for going on a wild goose chase that I made up myself, and will probably say that it's none of my business and everything he does is always put into question. Which—not a lie.

I breathe in, breathe out, pushing the intrusive thoughts away. Yes, getting caught would be very bad. _But we're not going to get caught._ “Alright, then. Onward!” I exclaim, pumping my fist in the air and holding my phone in my hand as if it were a sword and I’m a character in a fantasy novel that just conquered a kingdom. Or that's about to conquer a kingdom. Or go into a deadly battle, all odds stacked against her, which she probably won't come out of alive.

Oh, joy.

Mami and Abuelita don’t question the items we take with us or Syd’s boyish disguise. I’m sure they’ve seen enough weirdness from us that this is second nature by now. 

Or maybe, _just_ maybe, the only weird thing were our intentions.

“It’s so nice to see you again!” is the first thing that falls out of my mouth as I wave at Josh and take a seat across from him. We’re sitting near the entrance of the store, in a nondescript table by a large window. I set my iPhone face-down on the table, wait for the buzz of a text from Syd saying they can hear us loud and clear. “How has everything been? What have you been up to?”

I spent the better half of last night Googling conversation starters and ways to hold conversations efficiently. Predictably, the results weren’t helpful nor desirable, and I was left with a bunch of advice that felt rather run-of-the-mill and beyond aggravating in its uselessness. Alas, I decided to brainstorm a list myself and write it all down in my Notes app, since Google had failed me so thoroughly. And then I memorized the list so that the conversation could go as smoothly as possible; the odds were already against me because I'm about as sociable as a wet roll of toilet paper, I have to even the field as much a possible. 

  * I’m gay
  * What have you been up to?
  * How has the baseball team been?
  * How did telling your family you’re vegan go?
  * What are your plans for college?
  * How’s dating been? (USE THIS WITH CAUTION)



It’s not the greatest list in the world, by an astronomical margin, and the first option makes me grjmace, but if I’m lucky, it’ll get me through one hour, at least. Or maybe just forty-five minutes. I'd be happy with half an hour, even. Besides, people who are actually having conversations usually branch off into different topics, since life isn't a college essay, thankfully for my health. So the list isn’t a definitive outline of how this meeting will go, and I can also hope that Josh is as good a talker as he used to be or we'll be in deep shit.

The ball of anxiety that's been bouncing around in my stomach like my orgams are playing volleyball with it makes a particularly painful turn when I remind myself that all this meeting has to be is one thing: _not_ awkward. And I’m not sure I’ll succeed at that one thing. Most of my life, I’ve relied on Alex to be able to carry conversations and say charming things to get a person to like the both of us—or at least, him, because the faces I make are enoug to make anyone want to run away from my insufferable presence—and I don’t think I’ve ever been so jealous in my life. He opens his mouth, flashes a smile, and the world falls at his feet. Oh, how useful that skill would be right about now.

As pleasantries are completed, Josh takes pity on me and takes the lead. He begins to tell me about how he’s also taken up basketball, how he's considering football, and how well that’s been going, how many friends he's made, until my phone finally buzzes.

 **New message from Syd** **  
****[2:10 PM] Loud and clear, carry on :)**

“Oh, sorry,” I say with what I hope is a belivable show of honesty as I look down at my phone and bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t end up grinning like a maniac. _We’re a pair of geniuses, the two of us._ “I’ll put my phone on silent.” As soon as I’m finished doing so, I look back up at Josh, folding my arms as though I were dedicating all my attention to him. “You were saying?”

He keeps talking, telling me about this guy with a killer pass—whatever that is—and how the drills are absolutely brutal. In all honesty, I'm only half-listening, if even that. That makes guilt twist in my lungs like the beginnings of anthrax, because Josh is smiling so brightly and he's so friendly and warm and I remember why I called him a friend, now.

But.

I’m more preoccupied with making it _look_ like I’m genuinely invested in whatever story it is he’s telling me than _actually_ paying attention, which is ridiculously contradictory and I’m pretty sure it makes me a terrible person, but I’m on a mission here! I’m at this cafe to uncover the secrets my brother is hiding under Josh Flores's letterman jacket, because talking to him has gotten me nowhere for almost a goddamn year. Cut me some slack. 

Josh’s voice becomes the background music of the very gay, CIA-levels-of-conspiracy place my mind wanders off to at times like these. I find myself in this rainbow colored slippery slope more often than what is probably healthy for me, but it's already been established than I have issues and this one is not one I intend to fix.

If Josh and Alex _are_ dating, then they must be making an effort to keep it on the down low for now. Of course, Alex isn’t exactly open about anything in his life, despite what appearances might lead you to believe. He can speak for hours, cracks jokes like nobody's business and could genuine get a dozen dates in one day, but he hardly ever says anything that actually means something to him, something that matters. Something that says "this is who I am." It's so hard to start talking to him. I’ve wondered if it’s that he doesn’t like talking to _me_ , specifically, if it’s that he doesn’t like _talking_ , period. There is a lot of evidence pointing to the former, and not that much pointing to the latter. Then again, my collection of evidence is obviously biased, and not in the good way.

So it’s entirely possible that if he _is_ dating Josh—or just isn't straight at all—that he’s open about it at school and with his friends, just not his own family. _That might explain why he lost all his friends?_ I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that Finn was homophobic, since he was clearly allergic to being a decent buman being. I’d heard from Mami that he was the one who got Alex to start smoking weed a year ago, though that was a shitshow I did _not_ like to revisit. And I remember one specific instance when they were both, like, twelve, where Finn had tried to get Alex to steal a bottle of pills so they could sell it. Which. Shitshow once again?

I resist the urge to physically shudder because it’s only just occurred to me now how much of a bad influence Finn was upon him. Homophobia or not, I’m grateful for whatever it was that drove them apart. I don't want my brother to be one of the shitty men I hate with all the fury in my heart.

But I digress.

No matter how open Alex might possibly be about his relationship status or sexual orientation at school—although I haven't heard anything—there’s no way that Josh would divulge all the details to _me_ , his own sister, if my theory about Alex only hating conversations with his family is correct. I bite the inside of my cheek, chewing in the soft tissue as I begin to realize all the flaws and trade-offs that come with this plan, but I don’t let it show. Just keep smiling and nodding and saying “Uh-huh!” whenever it feels right. You can get through practically any conversation if you do that.

 _If you want to die alone, that is,_ a deceptively soft voice whispers in the back of my mind, and I pull down the urge to tell it to shut up.

“So, how about you?” Josh finally asks once he’s done talking, tilting his head like a golden retriever. 

I blink. “Huh?”

Josh smiles. “What about you? How’ve you been since the _quinces?_ ”

I cough, rushing to get my head in order. “Well, uh, things have been pretty good!” Suddenly I wish I had a coffee or a drink or _something_ so I could stall in the middle of talking. _Where do I even start?_ “Uh, I came out at my _quinces,_ and you were there, so you know what happened with my dad.”

Josh nods silently, a dark look crossing his soft blue eyes. It's odd, because his hair has gotten shorter and he's gotten paler, features more chiseled and jaw sharper, but his smile is still the same dimple-riddled thing and his eyes shine the same gentle light. Except now he looks angry, for a moment, before it passes and the sky clears again.

Josh Flores is a good friend.

“Things have gotten better with him,” I say, biting back a smile. “We’re not a perfect father-daughter relationship yet, but he apologized a while ago and he got remarried, and he asked to dance with me on the dancefloor during the party. So that was nice.”

“That’s great,” Josh says, smiling, so _honest_. He looks more relieved than anything, completely engrossed. “I’m really happy for you. Did he reach out to you, or…?” He trails off in the middle of the question he’s asking, motioning aimlessly.

“No, not exactly,” I say, shrug, and suddenly I'm trying not to smile because I see a perfect opening to bring my brother up. “After the _quinces_ , it was just total radio silence from him for a while. No calls or anything for, like, a year or something. And it really hurt for a while,”—I tell myself to _hurry up, get it over with_ when I see Josh’s expression gradually growing sadder, the dark shadow appearing again, skies going gray and thunder rumbling in the distance—“but then I found out that my brother, Alex, had been meeting up with my dad in secret to try to explain to him what he did was wrong. A little bit after that, my mom talked to him too, and I got to tell him to his face how much he hurt me with his actions and then he apologized. So it was my brother who really kickstarted the whole reconnection between us, actually.”

Josh’s face has gone back to happy-for-me, skies bluer than ever, not a dark cloud in sight and the sun filteriny through like it's the best day of spring. “Dude, that’s actually so sweet. That’s so awesome, that your brother did that for you. Took a lot of guts. And I still can’t believe your father did that to you,” he says, rolling his eyes at the last sentence, pursing his lips like a disappointed librarian. 

I sigh, rolling my eyes as well. “Yeah, you're telling me. But he’s gotten better, all in all, so that’s good.” I could go on for hours about this topic, say what I truly think and not risk ruining anything because I know Josh wouldn't judge me for feeling bitter still, but there’s no need to make it even more depressing. Or risk crying in public. Or make people uncomfortable. Or all of the above, likely in that same order. I _do_ file it away as last-resort topic to extend the coffee date if need be, though. “Do you remember my brother? You guys were on the baseball team, right?”

“Yeah,” Josh says. “It was him and a ton of other baseball players his age that like, idolized me for some reason. I was their Babe Ruth, I guess.” He shrugs as he takes a sip from the drink he ordered, smile somewhere between sheepish and thoughtful. “I actually found it funny how nervous he was when I came over to your apartment that first time.”

I nod, giggling at the memory. He’d gotten all flustered and insecure, stumbling over his words and dropping his grin. It was the most out-of-character I’d ever seen him, and it ranks top 5 to this day, so I’m a hundred percent positive he’d beat me with a sneaker if I dared bring it up. 

I will one day, just you wait.

Josh’s fond smile and ever-so-slight blush on his face—my brain isn’t making things up, right? That boy is entirely too pale for a blush to escape my eyes—doesn’t slide past me.

"I really liked going over to your house," Josh confesses, looking at the mug he cups between his hands with a smile that's just a little bit sad. "You had the coolest family. I'd never been in a place that felt so much like a real home, you know?"

I nod and smile, choosing not to ask him about my concerns surrounding why he evidently doesn't feel like his actual home is a home. He doesn't need to be put on the spot like that, stripped bare of pretenses and armors and laid out dor scrutiny I wasn't entitled to."That means so much. Thanks."

We fall silent for a moment, though it's not an uncomfortable silence. It's warm and nice, as he swirls his coffee and sips calmly, but I can't let it remain. _Consult the list._

“So… how’s dating been?”

I regret asking the question as soon as it comes out of my mouth, awkward and loaded with hesitation. I might be imagining it, but I could swear I can hear Syd facepalm loudly on the other side of the restaurant, likely looking at the ceiling and asking God for guidance. The bullshit they put up with from is staggering.

Josh chuckles at the odd question, face awash in red and eyes staring at the table resolutely, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I breathe a million sighs of relief internally. “Dating’s been really good, actually,” Josh says, pausing to take another sip from his coffee, throat bobbing somewhat nervously. “I met this girl. Her name’s Jessica.”

I falter, the ping-pong match inside my stomach going off-kilter as the ball shot out straight through my skin, but only for the slightest moment. I remind myself of my previous conspiracies concerning what it could mean if Josh told me that he was dating someone other than Alex. I force myself to smile. “Tell me all about her!”

Josh sighs dreamily, a grin already spreading across his face, then hesitates. “Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Well… then tell me how you guys met!”

Josh launches into a Shakespearean monologue about how he and Jessica met at the mall while he was shopping at a fast fashion place, which feels so unromantic I could see Emily Browning's ghost weeping in the corner. Apparently Jessica worked there and as she gave him back his credit card, she also gave him a Post-It note with ten numbers written on it. Classic.

Josh was so red he was sweating, pale skin showing off the crimson like he was sumburnt, as he told me how he realized that the ten-digit number was a phone number. It's somewhat endearing, I guess.

He goes on to describe their first date, and how beautiful her smile was and how lovely her whole personality was, and how he found himself thinking about her around the clock, non-stop. And as he's retelling the history of their relationship, I find myself weirdly panicked. Because he seems to be so _genuine_. Because these are not words memorized for an alibi, but words spoken straight from the heart and the horse's mouth.

Josh is speaking with such care and love and tenderness in his voice, something intimate and secret, the likes of which I've only ever seen in my Abuelita speaking about my Abuelito, or in Schneider talking about Avery, or in Dr. B talking about being happy. And it disturbs me, it makes the ping-pong match turn into Olympic volleyball all over again, because this means there's a high chance that Josh isn't actually lying here. And that Alex isn't actually dating him.

But then again, there _is_ another possibility.

"Josh is cheating on Alex" is the only idea my two remaining, active brain cells are able to latch onto as they rub against each other desperately. And it's all I can do to not immediately jump up and smack Josh across the face until his cheek due to reasons completely unrelated to his little tale. The urge is burning, scalding, boiling me alive from the inside out, but I suppress it, because _apparently_ to accuse someone of something, you need to have evidence or something. Who the hell _made_ these rules?

 _It's fine,_ I tell myself in my head, dripping with sweat. _This is probably a lie they agreed on. Maybe Josh is a really good actor!_ Syd might have a different opinion, too. I'll talk with them right after this, anyway, and maybe it'll yield good results and I won't have to put tuna in the glove box of his car. 

If this is a lie that Alex and Josh prepared, though, I'll have to find enough proof to make a fucking court of law agree with me. I can comb through social media—I'm a very good Instagram stalker—and pay closer attention to Alex in school. Record the times when Alex isn't home, and time how long he's gone.

This is going to be so, so tedious, so exhausting and so annoying I feel tired just thinking about it. It's going to be difficult, too. It'd better have one hell of a payoff.

It's been at least an hour here at the cafe together by the time we've run out of conversation and we've burned through everything on my list. I look at my phone and say, with something I hope approximates disappointment, "Oh, my mom is going to be picking me up right about now. It's 3:00."

Josh blinks in surprise. "Whoa, seriously?" he says, checking his own phone as if he needs to double check that the time actually is past 3:00, eyes widening. "Damn, time flies when you're having fun," he says with a smile, scratching the back of his head almost sheepishly.

I smile, too, and it feels like fucking plastic. I would've had a good time, too, had it not been for my mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Footnotes:**
> 
> 34 Spanish for "He always eats well." [return to text]
> 
> 35 This is a Spanish term that is used in some countries that is best translated as “loony bin” or “madhouse,” according to [SpanishDict.com](https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/loquero). Basically, a colloquial term for a psychiatric institution. [return to text]
> 
> 36 Yes, this is an actual iOS feature. We’re not making this shit up. [return to text]


	13. The Letterman Jacket III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena and Syd continue to not learn from both their mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hihihihihi!
> 
> We're not late this time!! Haha!!
> 
> We R E A L L Y hope you enjoy this next chapter. It took a lot of effort to make and honestly, I personally think it's one of the most entertaining so far. I adore our main boys Alex and Ángel, but Elena gives me life. Let us know what you think!! We live for comments. <3
> 
> By the way, I (yucatanmafia) now have a writer's Twitter account. The handle is [@alejandroaotd](https://twitter.com/alejandroaotd) and I plan to tweet whenever we update TAWFFH (or whenever I post any fanfic), so if you want updates that are likely more reliable than an email from AO3, don't be afraid to follow me on there!!
> 
> See you all on August 22nd with Part IV!

**_The Letterman Jacket III: Elena Alvarez_ **

If you had told me, say, one month ago, that I would soon be voluntarily taking on a task that required more brainpower, energy, caffeine fuel, perseverance, tedium, and monotony than writing a goddamn collection of essays for college, I would’ve broken down into tears, and possibly ended up in a mental institution. And yet here I am, pouring over screenshots of my text conversations with Josh, scrutinizing the notes that Syd took at that coffee date, and listening to my own voice notes that I’ve recorded while at school, stalking Alex from behind some plant. It’s an endless cycle of repeat and further analysis every day; read, research, listen, rinse and repeat. I feel like a washing machine, what with how many times I've done it at this point.

Half a month. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours have passed since Syd and I went on that coffee date with Josh, and I’m starting to regret ever finding the damn jacket to begin with. We’d dived headfirst into the coffee date with little to no proof to back us up, like two rookie detectives that just want to be right, and we left with...a mountain of uncertainty and even more unanswered questions. So...still like two rookie detectives who want to be right. You know what, I don’t like this analogy anymore. 

We’ve have exhausted every plausible avenue. We've gone through Alex's followers on his public Instagram  _ and _ Finsta, Josh's followers on his Instagram, as well as his Twitter. We've done Google searches, DuckDuckGo—do not ask—searches, Bing searches, even fucking Mozilla. I've kept a close eye on Alex  _ and _ Josh at school, which has gone about as well as you’d think, considering they’re in different grades and there’s only one of me, what with Syd being stuck at home. I've even spent a few more lunches at school in Josh's company, shooting the breeze and even enjoying chatting a bit—as much as you can enjoy a conversation with ulterior motives, that is—just to see if I'd ever meet this elusive girlfriend, whose name I now knew was Jessica. Alas, no such luck. I’ve still yet to find a single real, concrete answer to any of my endless questions. We’re at a roadblock, a stalemate, a desperate situation—damn Wikipedia—but somehow I feel like I just  _ can’t _ give up. There’s too much of a mystery here to drop it all. It feels like there’s too much on the line.

Admittedly, the mystery doesn’t exactly lay with the evidence I’ve gathered. If I step back and take an objective look at the entire situation, it becomes very clear that this is all nothing more than speculation with little proof and evidence to back anything up, and that some people would very likely call me crazy or tell me I need to  _ stop _ , but… this is too important to stop. It’s not about who my brother is dating, or whether it’s Josh Flores. It’s not about whether he’s been lying to me, or why he decided to put on the letterman jacket again after so long, or why he hadn’t woken up for breakfast that morning. It’s not even about the exhilarating, this-had-better-be-true possibility that my brother might also be queer, that I might not be alone in this after all.

It’s about none of those things, because they’re all inconsequential and inane at the end of the day. No, it’s about the fact that I can’t remember the last time that I, Alex’s own goddamn sister, had a real heart-to-heart conversation with him about something,  _ anything _ . I’ve tried to talk to him, relate to him, support him, be his confidant and also his sister. Nothing has worked. Nada. And I'm so fucking exhausted of all of my attempts at reconnecting with my brother getting me absolutely nothing other than more resentment and distance, creating a gaping canyon that I just can’t seem to breach, no matter how hard I try. I actually freaking cried myself to sleep last night, choked by desperation and craving answers more than I do oxygen. Uncovering the mysteries of my brother's silence is like solving a million-piece puzzle with a ten-minute time limit, except 999,999 of those pieces are oh-so-conveniently missing. No, you didn't lose them—they weren't even in the box to begin with, and the piece you do have is a fucking circle. 

A conversation. A real, simple brother-sister relationship. It's all I want. And I'll take what I can get, even if it means I find out that Alex and Josh were never dating, or that Alex really isn't queer, or something equally disappointing. It can be short, it can be mundane; it doesn’t even have to be too deep or emotional. It can be nothing more than, “I still know you’re there, you know. And I’m struggling and sorry I can’t tell you why, sorry I can’t ask for help, but thanks for being there.”

It can be just a simple, “I love you.” Something I haven’t heard out of Alex’s mouth for what must be centuries now.

It’s no use. Finally, I surrender, setting all my investigation materials aside for a second and stretching, a yawn louder than Abuelita's alarm clock—AKA her Cuban music—escaping me. I’m absolutely exhausted, to the point where I’m incredibly tempted to just collapse right here on my bed and sleep for twenty-four consecutive hours. I certainly deserve it, after all the work I’ve been doing. It’s insane. If only the answer to my predicament was as simple as Googling the answer. Being able to ask and getting a clear answer, plus the ability to seek out additional information if needed. Oh, that is the dream, indeed. 

It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee—we've gotten absolutely nowhere with this. All this time spent digging a hole for weeks on end—neglecting sleep, basic hygiene and, you know,  _ health  _ like war soldiers—only to find no buried treasure has only led me to being even  _ more  _ estranged from Alex. Go fucking figure. Because not only has he been spending all his time either in his room or at the gym, like a freaking recluse from society that aspires to become a bodybuilder, but now, he can't even look at me without his face contorting into some twisted mix of disgust and concern. It’s a little caustic, and sometimes it’s like he’s trying to say: “You’re really going out like that?” I must look like a train wreck with legs to him, what with the bags under my eyes and perpetually wrinkled clothes and my eternally disheveled hair and tragic lack of deodorant usage—he wants to look away, but he can't. Why is it that the human being is inevitably ensnared by tragedy and conflict?

Nope, too philosophical for me right now. I can feel the headache coming on around. 

_ Lack of deodorant usage. _ Wow, I do smell bad, don't I? A miracle that Syd hasn't left me for this already, really. They really love me. I should take them to Benihana again. 

Love aside, a shower wouldn't be a bad idea. I’ve been in dumpsters that smelled better than this. 

I decide to grab my towel and head to the bathroom, pleasantly surprised to find that, for once, Alex isn't hoarding it like a dragon protecting its treasure. The boy takes years in the bathroom, and I live with a woman that spends an hour in there on the daily. He'll go in with a towel, and we'll only hear the water running thirty minutes  _ after  _ he enters. That's another mystery to solve in these haunted halls. I make a mental note to research the psychology behind locking yourself in the bathroom even when you don't have to go, because there's no way Alex is actually  _ using  _ the bathroom every single moment he's in there. Because if he is, he needs immediate medical attention.

Once the door is safely locked behind me and I have claimed the bathroom for the time being, I put my towel on the towel-holder-thingy. What it’s actually called is beyond me, which reminds me—more research. My workload just gets more and more endless every single moment I stay awake, huh? With a sigh, I turn to have a look at myself in the bathroom mirror, which isn't very clean. In fact, it looks like it was used as a chalkboard and then as a painting palette, or maybe as a pan. Point is, someone needs to wipe this thing down with Windex or something.

Evidently, however, the mirror is far from the only thing in here that is in dire need of cleaning. Investigating Alex's secret fling with Josh has been a chaotic experience, with more than one moment of peril and adrenaline more befitting the Alex Rider saga, and the state of my hair reflects that with disturbing clarity. It's wild, disheveled, tangles bigger than some bushes I’ve seen and so much dandruff at the roots I’m concerned I might have developed a problem. You'd have an easier time taming a wild animal than you would my hair, and an easier time cleaning a stable than this— _ thing _ . The bags under my eyes are less like bags and more like backpacks, or international luggage. I swear, when it's depicted as these dark purple circles around the eyes in cartoons and animation, I always thought that that was hyperbole for the sake of illustration, because it was a cartoon. But no, it's real. Here I am, a raccoon with a lion's mane. Not to mention that my lips are chapped like hell. I wonder how it's possible that more people haven't pointed out the absurdity of my appearance yet. 

Maybe they were actually being polite and nice, which—I don’t entirely deserve, truly, considering bluntness is sort of my forte. 

I sigh, resigned to my fate. I might as well fix this. Cleanse myself, or something, so that maybe I can start feeling more like Elena Alvarez again and less like a security camera perched in the corner of my brother's bedroom. Which, when you think about it— _ ew _ . I start the shower, pull off my clothes, and step in. 

The water feels pretty fantastic to stand under, and I make a silent vow to never go that long without a shower ever again. My hair—and the rest of my body, for that matter—becomes soaked pretty quickly, and I relish in the feeling of being washed in something other than the conspiracy of my brother dating my  _ quinces  _ escort, who is likely cheating on him. Joyous tale, really. 

But of course, my brain can't latch onto any concept for too long unless it's about something studious or something gay. I have two functioning brain cells. One of them works to get me into college and the other works to be gay. Those are their two only functions, and I’m mostly okay with that, with the occasional lawsuit complaint filed to my own brain for its epic inaneness.

After a few minutes of pondering all the evidence I do and don't have, because there’s nothing else to do, apparently, and asking myself the same questions I've been asking for the past few weeks over and over again, I realize I'm going in circles. Again. I'm not getting anywhere. As per usual. Which, of course, isn't news, since _I already knew this, Brain_. Remember? No? Well, let me freshen you up: I haven't been getting anywhere for awhile now, and it’s a problem. A big one. But I want to do something about it, this time around. Anything, really.

Whatever to take this feeling of defeat and mediocrity currently dragging me down go away. 

If there’s one thing I've noticed during this whole investigation business, it’s that all of it is a hell of a lot easier when you don’t have to hide it, and are being blatantly clear about your intentions, goals, and actions. Back during the whole P Debacle—as dubbed by Syd, who still hasn’t quite gotten over it—we made it very publicly known to Alex that we were investigating him. And that we were going to pester him about, too. And include him in our investigation as though he weren’t actively trying to deter us from figuring out P’s secret identity—which we did, haha, suck on it.

Now, if we were able to ask Alex questions—or really,  _ anyone  _ that knew him well that wouldn't tell him we were up to something, which is...well, no one—well, then, we might have already found out the truth by now. Of course. Clearly. Or I wouldn’t even be having this mildly hysterical train of thought to begin with.

The problem is, I have no idea who I'd talk to. Abuelita is the first person who comes to mind, but I don't think Alex would voluntarily sit down and talk to  _ her,  _ even. It’s  _ that  _ bad. He loves her, of course, loves her more than he loves anyone or anything, really—but he doesn't like to talk, period. That rule doesn't fluctuate depending on the person. There are no exceptions, no allowances, no nothing. Alejandro Alberto Alvarez Riera Calderón Leyte-Vidal Inclán simply does not like to talk to anyone about anything that happens to involve his emotions in any way, shape, or form. In fact, he has to be dragged into such conversations metaphorically kicking and screaming and, even then, he isn’t particularly forthcoming. If I felt like wasting my time futilely either way, however, Alex's friends would be my only other option, but just I deduced observed, he doesn't really  _ have  _ any of those anymore. Which. Yeah. I force myself not to dwell on his lack of new friendships since he ditched Finn and that whole horrible clique of his, because that’s not going to get me anywhere and then I’d just be gleefully running down a spiral staircase into doom for kicks. Which.

Yeah.

If I'm going to find anything, anything at  _ all, _ that means I— _ we _ —will have to be bold. Daring. Relentless. Borderline shameless.

And maybe a little stupid, too.

What's the only thing in the world that knows you better than your own significant other—or, in this case, your...pillow? Yeah, that works—your phone. It harbors all your photos, messages, call logs, social media accounts, passwords, emails, search history, you name it. Kilobytes upon megabytes upon gigabytes of data are stored on your device's internal storage, and in the cloud. The contents of a person's phone tell more about someone than anything else. They can tell you someone’s life story, childhood fears, former loves, greatest dreams and fears, all their little secrets and all those things they never find the courage to put into words. A phone holds a life in it, a piece of someone’s soul.  _ Am I really about to try to steal my brother's phone? _

It's an  _ enormous  _ violation of privacy, even for me—I can admit I’m not exactly the most reassuring person when it comes to boundaries, okay—and if he finds out what I'm up to or catches me in the act, then he'll never forgive me, simple as that. But at the same time, technically,  _ everything _ I’ve been doing up to this point has been an enormous violation of privacy, so why start feeling bad now? It’s not like he’ll ever get within ten feet of me if he finds out even one of the things I’ve done in the last week, so if he’s going to hate me anyway, I might as well go all out. 

It’s risky, it’s more than a little dumb, and it’s very likely not a good idea in the slightest. In fact, it isn’t a good idea, period, and I should stop right now. But this is the only thing that is more or less  _ guaranteed _ to further the investigation in some way, to get me out of the gargantuan hole I’ve dug myself into and give us a cold lead before this whole case gets ice cold, a process that has unfortunately already begun. He catches me? I find out what the deal is with his elusiveness and distance; it’ll force a conversation, at least. We get his phone and there’s evidence he and Josh are actually dating? Bingo! We’ve accomplished our goal. We get his phone and find something else? Good; at least it’s something. There’s no telling or predicting  _ what _ could be on his phone, but I’ll take anything at this point. There’s nothing on his phone and we’ve just wasted our time? Definitely a pessimistic prediction and by far the worst case scenario starring in my goddamn nightmares, but at least it’d let us know that we can probably stop our deliberations. And like. Live a little again.

It might be our only option.

I send Syd a text message as soon as I make it out of the shower.

**[6:20 PM]** _ I have a plan _   
**[6:20 PM]** _ But it’s super risky. _

**[6:20 PM] for finding the truth about alex???**

**[6:20 PM]** _No, for getting plane tickets so we can visit the island of Lesbos. YES, about Alex!_  
**[6:20 PM]** _I wanna try to steal his phone_  
**[6:20 PM]** _But that’s a huge risk to take and I don’t even know how to go about doing it_  
**[6:21 PM]** _What do you think?_

**[6:21 PM] holy crap elena** **  
** **[6:21 PM] i wont be able to talk you out of this will i**

**[6:21 PM]** _ No. _

**[6:21 PM] alrighty sghkslshlgkh** **  
** **[6:21 PM] well then i suppose all i can do is prevent you from doing it wrong**

**[6:21 PM]** _Please_  
**[6:21 PM]** _I need tips_

**[6:21 PM] okay first, youll have to do it in the middle of the night, like after alex has gone to sleep** **  
** **[6:22 PM] attempting to go for someones phone while theyre awake is Not A Good Idea™** **  
** **[6:22 PM] youre gonna wanna wear socks, quiet ones so that your footsteps cant be heard by your flesh against the floor or your shoes against the floor** **  
** **[6:22 PM] and make sure you dont have any objects on your person that make noise when you move. keys, necklaces, jewelry, stuff like that. take it off (not that you wear any lmao but still)** **  
** **[6:24 PM] then you need to know where it is. it could be in the letterman jacket or on his bedside table or on him, in his bed. depends on how heavy a sleeper alex is, but you might not get the phone tonight. whatever. it happens. who says it’s a one time attempt? check any pockets of jackets he has hanging up in his room, check his tables, and then check the letterman jacket if he wears it to bed tonight** **  
** **[6:27 PM] then you wanna take the phone back to your room AND MAKE SURE THE SOUND IS OFF!!!!!! cuz it would really suck to successfully steal the phone but then it starts to ring and alex hears it and wakes up and oopsie poopsie, he caught ya** **  
** **[6:30 PM] actually it might be a good idea to go into the laundry room with it** **  
** **[6:30 PM] everything should go well if you follow these instructions sgklhaskhsghkl**

**[6:30 PM]** _ I’m getting the feeling you’ve stolen a phone before _

**[6:31 PM] my experience in smartphone heists is irrelevant**

**[6:31 PM]** _ Am I dating a shoplifter? _

**[6:31 PM] no but ive written a lot of funny wynonna earp fanfiction in my life and i may or may not have just explained in detail the events of chapter 13 to you ashglksahiasngoawgjawbjlh**

**[6:31 PM]** _ Bold of you to assume I didn’t already know the plot of my Sydnificant other’s fanfictions ;) _

* * *

Sleepless nights, oh how I missed you. I’m just kidding; you can go to hell.

As I wait for the orange digital numbers on my alarm clock to change from 2:59 to 3:00 with all the patience of a 3-year-old, donning the quietest socks I own and nothing that will make noise when I move, like Syd said, I wonder if this plan is truly insane. Well, I mean,  _ more  _ insane than I previously thought. And I also wonder about what the point of no return is, exactly. Is it when the clock hits 3:00 AM? Is it when I decide to get out of bed, when I muster up all my courage, convince myself it’s for the best and enter my brother’s room? Is it when I finally have his phone in my grasp and I can sneak off to the laundry room to scan its contents? Is it when I find out all the things he doesn’t want to tell me and can never look him in the eye the same way again, because I know him so much better than he thinks and it’s all because I betrayed the person he told me he was?  _ I miss twenty minutes ago, when I was still proofreading Syd’s Wynonna Earp fanfictions on my phone.  _

I have a feeling that I’ll know when I know. And that scares me. Diving headfirst into this without a detailed, concrete plan… there’s nothing more frightening. Oh, sure, I’ve done many chaotic things in my life, the bottom line of which is chasing my brother down to a pizza place to spy on his supposed date, but here I’m faced with an event that will drastically affect everything that happens in the following few days—or everything that happens after, period—if I decide to go through with it. And not having the slightest idea of what  _ will _ happen makes my stomach churn, twist around my ovaries like rope around rocks and then hang from my ribs like a damn piñata. I can guess real hard and real good, too, like I did earlier, but let’s face it: that’s all just speculation, and no matter how viable whatever I come up with may seem, it’ll be nothing more than baseless theories. Just like this entire damn investigation!

Oh, great, we’re going, sure. Because everything isn’t already hard enough without me starting to ponder the futility of my actions thus far, obviously. 

I breathe, and struggle to unwrap my guts from my ribcage, try to knock my internal organs out of the twisted web in my chest cavity. To no avail, of course, because such is my life. It’s 3:00 AM now. I feel a grand clock pound this knowledge into the back of my head, like I’m in a mystery film with a murder in a vacation manor, and I bite the inside of my cheeks as I think back to what I told myself in the shower.  _ This is the only course of action that will guarantee an outcome and not a dead end. And even if there is a dead end, at least this whole disaster of trying to figure out what’s up with my brother will finally come to a close.  _ It really  _ is _ the only option that I have. I can’t keep wallowing and hesitating like an idiot. I need to act, before I’m truly out of options.

So why is my stomach as bottomless as a ballpit?

I stand up, my bones feeling like they weigh a million pounds each. My lungs feel heavier, threatening to capsize my ribcage, and make a mess out of me. My bed creaks a bit, almost giving me an aneurysm. I swear, I am  _ the worst _ at keeping quiet in the middle of the night. So of course the most pivotal, risky plan I’ve ever made with be a stealth mission. Fucking figures. I’ll take a step and suddenly the floor creaks and squeaks like hell, alerting the entire damn apartment building—not to mention my family—of my insomnia. Something that I definitely do not fucking need right now, thank you very much, creaky board #5.

Shaking the anxiety from making so much noise off, I head out of my room with my heart acting as a plug for my throat and stand in the doorway, looking left and right like I’m about to cross the street or hand someone a package of drugs. It doesn’t do me any good, because I can’t see shit. It’s dark and it hurts to look at, the only light provided consisting of an ever-so-subtle glow emanating from the kitchen window, from the streets and the moon. The sun has just  _ barely _ begun to make its way to the Pacific time zone to wake up its inhabitants, and it shows in the way that I can just about make out the shape of the dining table and its surrounding chairs, but not much else. 

As I take yet another step, something occurs to me: Alex  _ must _ already be asleep, and if he isn’t, then that’s a sign that something may well be very, very wrong. He  _ is _ , after all, an angsty teenager who apparently harbors his own mysterious secrets and keeps many of them—no,  _ all  _ of them—locked tight in a little box, away from his own family. Compartmentalizing isn’t good, you know. He may very well be on his phone right now! Or, at the very least, awake. They’re two possibilities that I can’t dismiss nor afford. I don’t have time to come up with a plan for what to say to him if he catches me, though. I’ll just have to trust—maybe even  _ pray _ —that something to say will just occur to me and that I won’t panic and completely foil the entire investigation. In other terms, I’ll have to wing it and hope for the best, which means I’ll fail and this whole operation was clearly doomed from the very start. 

Finally, my feet carry me into his room. The aforementioned minimal amount of light emanating from a sun that is currently a great distance away from rising above California is the only thing illuminating the room, letting me see and know what exactly I’m doing. Which is good, because staring into the darkness hurts all the more with my glasses and the blurry lines caused by shadows become more incomprehensible  _ without  _ them, so the light helps me avoid another headache, thank God. Yay sun. 

Through the thick darkness, I can just make out the shape of two or three jackets, sweaters, or hoodies hanging on the row of coat hangers on the wall adjacent to his shelves of sneakers that he never freaking wears, and that he’d also probably save over any of his family members if the apartment complex ever spontaneously decided to catch on fire. It’s a fact I’ve made my peace with, insulting though it may be. I hold my hands out in front of me like I’m on  _****__la cuerda floja_ [37] and take slow, deliberate, soft steps to avoid the floor from creaking  _ and _ to avoid running into something and making a loud noise that’ll wake Alex—or anyone else—up. I feel like I’m in Mission Impossible.

It is not half as cool as I always dreamed. 

_ Waking Alex up. _ I turn my head to the right and squint, trying to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose by wrinkling it. Alex appears to be fast asleep, the blankets enveloping almost his entire body, like a cocoon. What is he, a pupa? The blanket goes up to his ears, leaving only his hair, eyes, and nose visible. It’s actually quite cute, the way his nose is sticking out like a child in a cartoon. I wonder what Alex thinks about himself, about his physical appearance. If he could still look at himself in the mirror and believe he’s hot shit, with all the self-awareness that Narcissus himself had, or if he no longer believes himself to be as handsome and cute as he once preached he was. Or if maybe, just maybe, he never believed it quite as absolutely as he made all of us think.

The thought had never crossed my mind before and suddenly, I wish it had stayed that way. 

_ No time to ponder your brother’s internal monologues, _ I chide myself, and turn my head back around, so I can continue navigating Alex’s unlit room.  _ Head in the game, Elena. _ I take another step and my hand comes into contact with a hard surface, making me flinch and retract my hand so fast I fear I knocked something over. I just barely stop the gasp before it rolls of my tongue, like an admission of guilt.  _ It’s his dresser, _ I realize, pressing a hand against my chest. God, I swear I almost freaked. I breathe through my nose again, much like I did when I almost fell over after seeing Alex wear the letterman jacket for the first time, the very incident that launched this whole fiasco into action. Oh, to look back on the moment where you lost your shit. Good times. 

Eventually, after what feels like two years and a pregnancy of standing in the same exact spot, like I’m in quicksand, or something, I finally I make it to his jackets.  _ I’ve really made it this far? I deserve a cookie. Or, like, ten.  _ Grabbing one of the articles, silent triumph floods me at the soft material I squeeze in my hands, somewhere between cotton and something else. Definitely one of Alex’s hoodies. Despite my feeling and digging around in as many pockets as I can find, nothing is in any of them, which is pretty damn frustrating. And also good, because keeping things in your pockets is messy, inconvenient, inconsiderate to the person doing the laundry and can also occasionally have catastrophic consequences, like ruining an important prescription. 

Getting off track here. 

I turn to face the opposite direction and hold my hands out again, slowly attempting to feel Alex's dresser again. Without warning, my fingers brush the hard wood and I smile briefly, run my hand along the top of it very slowly. There's nothing on it. Of course now he would decide to be a paragon of order and sanitation. Damn him. 

In that case, time to check his desk, which I hope is more forthcoming. I'm not too confident in my abilities to blindly navigate my brother's room—especially when the stakes are so high—but I'm positive that his desk is on the opposite side of the room. Slowly, I make my way there, every step slow and quiet and deliberate. Not enough, never enough, because there’s the brush of carpet and wood against sock and fabric against fabric, but it’ll have to suffice. 

I do the same thing when I reach his desk: run my hand across the surface of it, pat along the edges for things hanging from it, even brush against the edges for kicks. All I come across is what feels like a book that is definitely  _ way _ too big to be a phone, and way too big to be anything Alex would read without having it forced into his hands, bag and then mind, to be dutifully and thoroughly forgotten after a test. My heart leapt up into my throat when I touched it, excitement sparking up at the cold surface, only to sink back down in disappointment when I realized what it really was.

Turning back to face my brother, I exhale through my nose quietly when it dawns upon me that there’s only one more place to check.  _ Check his jacket pockets, check his tables. Then check his bed. _

_ Oh, fuck me.  _

Alex is currently asleep on his right side, and given the nature of how he has wrapped himself up in his blanket, there’s no telling whether he’s wearing the jacket unless I take his blanket off of him. Something I really, really don’t want to do. It’d be like walking into a dragon’s lair and trying to take off the key hanging from its neck; stupid, reckless and possibly—which is to say, most likely—fatal. I gulp, feeling like I’m walking into the jaws of death; getting that blanket off of him might be the hardest thing I’ve had to do for the investigation since it began.

Or for any investigation ever, period. Or, you know, Top 5 Hardest Things I’ve Ever Had To Do, period.

_ Remind yourself why you’re doing this, _ I tell myself.  _ You want to get closer to your brother. This is going to give you the answers you need.  _

It’s enough to make me stop hesitating and start breathing instead, shaking my fear off physically and making my way back to the other side of the room—where my freedom lies, along with Alex’s shelves of greed, beside his coat hangers. I’m facing Alex now, staring right at his face. He’s  _ definitely  _ still asleep, judging from how he hasn’t moved an inch since I got in here. 

I take one, two steps closer, and rub my eyes. His eyelashes are long, and they tell me that his eyes are closed shut. As they should be. Good.

I squat down and almost immediately regret it—this is going to be difficult to come back from, isn’t it?—to observe Alex’s blankets. Sure enough, they’re  _ tucked _ under his body—which, what the hell? What kind of maniac sleeps with their blankets tucked  _ under  _ them?—meaning I won’t be able to just gracefully peel the blanket off of him like I did that morning I found him wearing the jacket; dammit! This is going to be much more difficult. Surrender suddenly seems so tempting and sweet, like honey, or kissing Syd. Just a few steps outside. I can crawl, even, what with the crouch and all. The door is right there…

But no. 

I had come into the room wondering what the point of no return was. Alex is still asleep, and I have found nothing; I could easily tip-toe silently right back into my room, climb back into bed, and pretend this never happened. And Alex wouldn’t know. Nobody would, really, because Syd doesn’t count. They’re an accomplice, a partner in crime.

Getting this blanket off of my little brother:  _ that’s _ the point of no return. Getting my hands dirty and betting everything in the greatest gamble I can think of. So now I know.

It’s as nauseating as I predicted, and I don’t think I can stop. 

Crossing my arms and furrowing my eyebrows, I clench my teeth and ponder how, exactly, to go about getting my hands on his phone.  _ It could be in the letterman jacket, _ Syd had suggested, presenting me with the perfect storm oh so innocently. Getting that damn jacket would be a world of pain, though—and also one that could prove to be incredibly unnecessary, as a flat surface and a pocket aren’t the only two places a phone could be stored. Unfortunately. Yay me. 

Excitement and hope bubbling up within me way too quickly, I turn to Alex’s nightstand and pull the drawer open, thankful that it’s actually quite quiet and doesn’t make too much noise, other than the slide of wood on wood and the negligible rattle of all the things in it. I lower my hand into the drawer, the excitement in my veins quickly drying up and shriveling into a raisin, being replaced by fear as I realize I have no damn clue what’s in his drawer or how loud trying to dig through it will be. And if I  _ do _ make noise, I’m as good as dead—this nightstand is  _ right next to Alex’s head! _ Of course it is, though—it’s a damn  _ nightstand. _ What the hell was I  _ thinking _ ? Oh, right; I wasn’t.

What, oh what did I ever do to deserve being placed into such a pickle? A few things come to mind like there’s higher powers at work here, but I shrug them off. Rhetorical question. 

I place my hand in like it’s going to get bitten off. The first thing I feel is a wire. My fingers squeeze it and my fingertips follow the course coil until I find an end.  _ Oh, it’s his phone charger. _ My fingers dance around the drawer a bit more, movements slow and short, careful to knock into things gently. I stumble across what feels like a can of deodorant—Lord, please let it not be AXE Body Spray—a plastic box of some sort that is probably the packaging for his wireless earbuds or some other junk, and some sort of bottle that feels like it’s made of glass. Likely cologne. But, as my luck would have it—no phone.

Closing the drawer slowly and exhaling at just the same speed through my nose, I feel resigned and more than a little drained. The universe has left me no choice.

I begin to breathe, because my organs are dislodging and the only thing holding them up is my stomach wrapped around them painfully.  _ Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight: _ it’s a breathing trick my therapist taught me, supposedly meant to help people calm down when they’re anxious, which I find myself using from time to time. People have told me it’s best to do breathing exercises whilst standing up, but I decide to sit down on Alex’s bedroom floor instead. It’s not like I’m one who is inclined to follow societal norms or things that Western culture has deemed “normal”, anyways. I don’t think anyone in this home has much of a claim to normality, and I don’t want to be the one to change that.

_ Four, seven, eight. _ Sitting down here will help me feel more like I’m on my own bed, in my own room, instead of in my brother’s room attempting to steal his phone in order to uncover the mysteries of his love life and distance from his own family and humanity at large.  _ I’m going to be sick if I keep thinking about the ethical weight of my actions. _

I can start slow. Start with something low-risk and work my way up. Oh, God, I sound like a criminal—nope, not going there. 

As quietly as I can manage, I inhale and exhale through my nose, determined to get my hands on this damn phone if it kills me—which it very well might. Then I stand up, and I suddenly feel a lot taller than I did standing up just a few moments ago. Leaning down, squinting, and adjusting my glasses so they’re actually  _ helping me see _ and not sliding down the bridge of my nose, I observe Alex’s asleep face. The overwhelming lack of luminance in the room has me half-convinced I’m imagining things, but then again, this whole  _ investigation _ wouldn’t exist if I really believed that everything I saw was a product of my imagination. Alex appears to have dark circles under his eyes, just like mine. Maybe even  _ bigger  _ than mine. Now  _ that’s  _ something to write home about. 

Looking back on the last few days, Alex  _ has _ been more noticeably tired, but just  _ normal _ tired. A “oh, did you not get a good sleep last night?” kind of tired, not a “dude, I think you have insomnia, go get some help” kind of tired. But the thing is, I’ve been observing him all this week at a distance too far for me to notice the apparent bags that have formed under his brown eyes, on a face he usually lives to keep perfect and unblemished. And now that I’m so up close, likely a hair’s width away from being able to wake him up just by continuing to breathe, it’s… disconcerting. Discouraging, too, though not much. 

Nonetheless, I need to continue. Getting distracted by my thoughts and anxieties is going to end up screwing me over again like it normally does. I store the existence of the bags under Alex’s eyes away in my brain as reassurance that he’s fast asleep—one tends to  _ stay _ asleep if they’re exhausted. An exhausted Alex is a heavy sleeper. Which is a good thing for me, a bad thing for him, and a bad thing all around, which also makes it a bad thing for me.

Inhale through nose, exhale through nose. Four, seven, eight. Hesitantly yet unfalteringly, I reach out and touch Alex’s pillow, and he doesn’t so much as twitch. Confidence and anticipation both threatening to eat me alive, I lift up the pillow ever so slightly, my heart caught in my esophagus as I cling to the absurdly infinitesimal chance that maybe Alex fell asleep with his phone in his hand under his pillow, pleading and begging any and all higher power(s) above to find something useful.

And what I discover is not a phone, but perhaps the sleeve of the bumblebee-colored letterman jacket that I find means that my journey hasn't reached its end.

Thank you, Higher Power(s).

It would appear that Alex doesn't have his letterman jacket— _ Josh's _ letterman jacket—on right now, for whatever reason, and is merely sleeping on top of it. Which is still far from a heterosexual course of action, but that’s a matter aside for the time being. If I can pull it out from under him, either quickly or slowly, I could get my hands on the jacket, and maybe, just  _ maybe _ , his phone too, without ever having to touch his blanket. That would be the best thing to happen to me all week, all things considered; it would be like making it through the most hellish voyage in history after being in the eye of the storm for days, weeks. 

I just have to do this one more thing, and I’m done. I’ll finally get the information I need. I'll finally get to know what is wrong with Alex, how to help him. 

I grab the sleeve and tug tentatively. Nothing and no one moves an inch, so I tug just a little bit harder. 

Then, shattering all my hopes and dreams with a soft groan, Alex stirs.

I suck in my breath and once again begin saying a prayer to all the higher powers I've ever known of saying please, please, please, please,  _ please  _ don't let my brother wake up and see me.

Please, please,  _ please _ just give me one more chance to make this right, see it through to the end. 

Then Alex rolls over to his left side, now facing the opposite direction, letting out a quiet sound that makes him seem so  _ young _ . Damn it, that hurts. And he begins to snore—loudly enough for me to hear him now but undoubtedly quiet enough that I wouldn't be able to hear it from my room. That seems to perfectly encapsulate who Alex has become since I took my eyes off him for a moment too long.

Now that Alex's body isn't directly on top of the jacket, almost the entire article is visible to me through the blankets like a treasure chest, and I could pull it away with one or two simple tugs.

So I do, and in the blink of an eye, the jacket's in my hand, but not after a violent heart palpitation caused by the sudden realization that one side of the jacket was being weighed down by a certain something being stored in the left pocket. When I pull the jacket and it comes free, the jacket almost landed on the ground; I had to grab and clutch it close to my chest before it could bang against the ground and create any noise that would wake my brother up. It had been a dive worthy of TV, where I almost slammed into the bed and woke him up myself. Details.

Actually, no—I didn't have a heart palpitation, my heart just stopped completely, although if that happened I guess I’d be temporarily dead. Because once I'm able to dig through the jacket's pockets and discover something rectangular-shaped and definitely very smartphone-y, my heart didn't begin to beat again. And I still haven't let go of the breath I'm holding. I am going to pass out. That is not good.

I have not only the letterman jacket, but my brother's phone. My mission was  _ successful.  _ I win. I fucking did it.

I could cry from the triumph running molten through my veins, the relief stuttering through my chest. But I can’t, not yet. 

I can't possibly tip-toe out of this room, out the front door of our apartment, and down to the laundry room fast enough. And I also can't possibly stop myself from giggling to myself quietly for being such a damn genius and having a master heist planner for a Sydnificant other, jumping up and down slightly in my joy.

When I make it to the laundry room, I switch on the light and gently shut the door, trying to keep the exhilaration threatening to burst from my chest at bay. No one else is in here, thankfully and logically—just the various washing and drying machines to keep me company. Appliances are not bad company, something I learned very well when I talked to the toaster about my essays. I eagerly sit down on the floor up against one of them and take a look at both items I've stolen up in close detail for the first time, feeling like I’m holding prehistoric, previously undiscovered gems.

The letterman jacket is just as black and yellow as I remember, like a bee, and it is just as oddly soft and stiff as I expected. Yes, this is definitely,  _ undoubtedly _ the same jacket Josh wore to my house every damn day. And holding it so close to my face, I begin to get a whiff that's very-yet-vaguely familiar.

Hesitantly and unable to not feel like a creep while doing so, I sniff the jacket delicately and close my eyes. And the only image that can enter my mind is one of my Abuelita with a laundry basket full of freshly washed clothes, giving off the gentle scent of clothes softener and sweet detergent, and it hits me like a brick.

This jacket has been _washed._ Recently. Like, _very_ recently.

Like, maybe  _ today  _ recently.

What this means in the greater scheme of Alex's frankly demented behavioral patterns and the investigation as a whole reminds me of the second item I stole, and the whole point of me putting my ass on the line: his phone. I let the jacket fall into my lap and scramble to pick up Alex's phone.

The device is still powered on and the battery sits at about 18%, which is terrible and incredibly irresponsible—you should plug your phone in before going to sleep so it’s fully charged before school, Alex. I slide my finger across the lockscreen, the wallpaper of which is currently set to what I'm pretty sure is a collage of Bad Bunny album art. That is an insult all of its own, although one I will not get into, for the sake of my already tenuous grasp on my sanity. Let bygones be bygones, for once in my entire existence. A numeric keypad appears, demanding I type in a four digit passcode.

I have my life.

I take a wild stab in the dark and input his birthday, 0709, hoping beyond hope that I can rely on Alex’s narcissism to light the way if nothing else, and lo and behold—I get it right on the first try.

His home screen appears like an oasis after days wandering the Sahara, and as those apps and folders materialize on the screen in front of me just waiting to be tapped on, I see God and a sinking feeling settles in my gut. I have achieved my goal, have gotten what I wanted so badly and so desperately, am holding the fruits of my labor in the palm of my hand, and my chest is about to undergo a massive landslide, red alert raised. Because somehow, some way, and for some goddamn reason, I have a feeling that I might not have so much time left in this laundry room.

I open Snapchat, not bothering to check the Settings to see which app is most frequently opened like I'd originally thought to do— _ no time, _ something in me urges, chants,  _ screams _ —begin scrolling through his contacts for any sign of a Josh Flores or any name similar to his Instagram handle. Nothing. 

It's when my thumb flies to the top of his screen to input text into the search bar that my heart stops beating again, crashing wildly through bone and soft tissue and muscle like a wreckage, because I hear someone running down the hallway, their footsteps anxious and furious. Way too loud for 3:00 in the morning. Way too loud to be anything but the consequences of my bad decisions coming to bite me in the ass. 

And I'm caught like a deer in headlights when my brother bursts into the laundry room, eyes bloodshot and the size of saucers, hair disheveled, bags and shadows the color of plums under his eyes, chest heaving like he ran a marathon, and face carved into an expression of nearly comical shock.

_ "Elena?" _

I should have stayed in bed after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37 _La cuerda floja_ is the tightrope, like in a circus. Usually, it defines a situation of great peril where you're hanging on by a thread and even the wind is against you. A single wrong breath could be fatal, nevermind a step. [return to text]


	14. The Letterman Jacket IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex ponders his worst nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE LITERALLY SO SORRY ASHGKLASHASGHLKHLASHGAHAALAHKGAL WE LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANKS FOR STICKING AROUND THIS LONG
> 
> This chapter was originally intended to start right off where the previous one did, but after a lot of discussions and editing we decided to be a little mean and reverse the timeline a bit. Here's a look at what Alex and Ángel have been up to during Elena and Syd's sleuthing.
> 
> The two main reasons why this chapter took so long to finish is because the original draft was about 9k words long, so I had to find a point where I was happy splitting the chapter up into two, and my co-writer Gab couldn't find sufficient time to edit everything (especially considering she got herself into a fucky situation that resulted in an injured knee).
> 
> Anyway, PLEASE ENJOY. We really hope you like it. This chapter is about 9.5k words long, our longest yet if I'm not mistaken. Hopefully this was worth the wait. <3

**_The Letterman Jacket IV: Alex Alvarez_ **

I kept the letterman jacket, and—surprise, surprise!—I’m hating myself for it.

Oh,  _ joy. _

I mean, it wasn’t exactly a  _ conscious  _ decision, or anything. Really. In fact, I don’t have any recollection of the precise, fateful moment—which I regretted in a whooping 0.6 seconds—in which I decided I wouldn’t throw it out or donate it or anything. Bad decision making is bad, and I should really stop partaking in it. Apparently, my few working brain cells appear to disagree. 

Either way, what is done is done, even if I have no clue  _ how  _ it was done. I think I just kind of— _ looked _ at it for a minute and somehow it didn’t positively swarm my head with a wild flock of anxiety, and I guess seeing that I wasn’t about to pass out just from staring at the thing somehow convinced me that it was  _ fine _ . Which it wasn’t, and still isn’t, but yeah. Why, exactly, the letterman jacket decides to fuck with my head arbitrarily only to then not ruffle my feathers in the least will likely be an eternal mystery for me. One I’ll always wonder about whenever I look at it with all the uncomprehending disbelief of a paleontologist discovering the remains of a 50-foot-long snake that weighed more than a house and happened to be called Titanoboa, because  _ of course _ it was—and yup, I’ve definitely been spending  _ way  _ too much time with Angel.

But I digress. It’s definitely better for me to throw it out like the vermin it is, anyway, since it would stop a whole barrage of possible disasters that is so abundant, I can’t even begin to list them. Even if I could keep it—because fuck all that shit about how “it’s Josh’s property”; he  _ left it _ at our goddamn apartment for  _ years _ . Finders keepers and all that nice stuff, bitch—but.

_ But _ because it used to be his, and this whole situation is absolute garbage, I have no choice but to get rid of it like any sane person would. I know what happens when you keep stuff that seems intent on ruining your life, okay? I’ve seen  _ Anabelle _ . 

I should have stayed in the womb, honestly, but what the hell. 

Out of all the things that could possibly still be sitting in your room for years, decaying and slowly turning into a lethal, parasitic monster that will one day be Patient Zero in a Resident Evil wannabe film, a letterman jacket belonging to your sister’s  _ quinces _ escort whom neither your sister nor you have seen since said  _ quinces  _ is probably the last possible thing that I would’ve ever wanted to find. Or, like, even expected to find. I’m still not entirely sure I wasn’t high on mushrooms that were probably growing on my dirty, radioactive socks. 

And I mean, when you think about it while putting this whole clusterfuck aside, it’s objectively creepy that I basically stole his jacket because I idolized him. It’s creepy that I idolized him so much, period. All of it is appalling and alien in a way that makes it feel like the experience doesn’t belong to me, but rather to some other poor, creepy soul that idolized a good baseball player because he was cool. I was a kid, but…

But nothing. I was a kid, and a spectacularly dumb one, at that, what with all the shit I pulled. Mami deserves an award for having to put with me. Still a kid, with dumb, childish ideas. I didn’t know any better. I didn’t understand what I was doing, not fully, and I mean, it could happen to anyone, right? It’s not like it’s weird, or anything, just a common, dumb mistake from an ordinary, dumb kid, and nothing else—

_ Why am I even making excuses at this point? _ My train of thought screeches to a halt, all the hollow words not even I crumbling through my mind like incense, ash turning the emptiness gray. There’s no way I can twist my words, no way I can change the scenery, no way I can trim the facts and sugar-coat reality to make this situation sound better. This tale, this life, where I was a dumb kid who made a dumb mistake knowing exactly what it would lead to and knowing how weird it was, is about as good as it gets. Even so, ignorance is bliss, and nobody knows what I did—I’ll just get rid of it and take this to my grave. The grave, and beyond. If Jesus comes up to me in the afterlife, hands me a black-and-yellow letterman jacket, and asks who I got it from, I’ll shake my head and tell Him that he’s got the wrong guy. It’s worth a shot.

But really, who am I kidding? I’m probably going to hell. The Devil will sew the jacket into my skin and make me wear it forever, and have me over for tea so he can ridicule me with all the scathing charm of a fallen angel out to get you. Now  _ that’s  _ eternal damnation.

When I get home today I can drag it out from under my bed, stuff it into my backpack, go to the gym, and then dispose of it somewhere along the way, where it'll be found by some unfortunate soul. Selfish of me to curse others, I know, but so long as there are no demons in my home, I can live with one or two people losing their minds thanks to me. It’ll probably look weird, a teenage boy stuffing a perfectly good jacket into a garbage can, but at the end of the day, this is Los Angeles. It's the United States of America, grand capital of deceit, fuckery and decay, for fuck’s sake. I’m not the first person to do something suspicious and/or odd in broad daylight in the middle of the street, and I won't be the first person to get away with it quite flagrantly. I won't sweat it. 

Maybe I can just leave it behind at the gym or something, instead; the gym’s employees will come across it, think this isn't a very elaborate scheme to get rid of a Satanic object, place it in Lost and Found, and if it rots there oh so innocently for too long, they might just donate it to some Goodwill or something. Or I could just donate it to Goodwill myself; I'm dooming some person who's never done anything wrong in their lives before, I might as well do some good while I'm at it. Karma and all. But with my luck, Josh will be a fucking employee at the store, or I’ll run into him there because of course I fucking will, and he’ll somehow recognize the jacket and—

Yeah, no, I’d prefer not to think about the sorts of things that would happen, should I ever encounter Josh in real life with the jacket on my person. I do have an ounce or two of self-preservation, after all.

Last night—some 24 miserable, wonderfully agonizing hours since The Fateful Midnight Discovery—I was lying in bed awake at an ungodly hour of the morning with the jacket on; you know, as one does. My family members have yet to see me with the jacket, since I happen to have some working gray matter, and I was determined to  _ keep _ it that way. Mami and Abuelita would’ve asked where I got it since they sure as hell didn't buy it, and Elena would’ve lost her shit and pestered me about it, because she definitely would remember it. Just like the P Debacle. Elena saw me texting him with a smile on my face  _ one time _ , and suddenly, I had a secret girlfriend who was lactose intolerant and left-handed. Go fucking figure. She is so fucking nosy. And unreasonable. And obstinate. 

My dear sister Elena is a lot of things, not all of them good, but not all of them bad. Many of them are good, actually; but lately, I can only see the worst of it, because she won't  _ stop _ . Fuck. Let's leave that for late revision. There, thumb-tacked for 2022. Nice!

I remember I had buttoned up the letterman jacket for maximum warmth, silently screaming at every little  _ click _ that the buttons made as I pressed them together, hoping that no one would hear it. It was like the ticking of a grandfather clock, gently and oh so tenderly driving me to the edge of insanity with arbitrary benevolence that came solely from impartiality. It was too fucking much. That time, I  _ was  _ indeed wearing something underneath the jacket—a stretched-out black T-shirt, well-worn and fuzzy. The color black traps the heat in, which would keep me warm and toasty, theoretically speaking. With the letterman jacket shut nicely on top of it, and my blanket wrapped around me like a tortilla, I actually slept like a baby. Which, uh— _ new _ .

The letterman jacket might have been warmer than my blanket itself, actually, which just goes to show it's cursed with Satanic power. I’ll admit, possibly my favorite thing about wearing the jacket is that it feels like a hug, damn it. A warm, gentle, unconditional embrace. It doesn't ask questions, doesn't request answers you don't have, doesn't condition you to explain something you don't yet understand in order to get that which you so desperately need. It's not human and it's the best thing ever even though it's possessed. I couldn't even begin to recall the last time I hugged someone who wasn’t Mami or Abuelita. It felt so  _ nice _ , to be wrapped in such warmth without fearing the moment it inevitably departed and left the whole in my chest gaping wider, and I found myself wishing I could experience this more often. Experience it more, period.  _ Or maybe, just maybe, it’d be even nicer to  _ be _ a letterman jacket, to be someone who provides this warmth, someone who whispers that it's alright and offers comfort without requesting anything in return.  _

Sounds like a sand dream.

But that's fine. I'm fine with the present, fine with the now, where I am, sitting in the school library across from Ángel, as we always do. I'm fine. It's all fine. I don't mind, and I understand, and it's fine.

I can’t shake the thoughts from last night away.  _ Just great. _

My forehead rests against the cool smoothness of the table, presently trying to merge with the polished wood, both earbuds blasting a reggateón song from Spotify’s  [ _ ¡Viva Latino! _ ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX10zKzsJ2jva?si=3AyQKGlUQQqpTb79-XhPBg) playlist. I can tell the lyrics are simple, that they're really nothing special, but I can't tell what they are no matter how hard I try to focus on them. All I can truly make out are the loud instrumental, drowning out even my own heartbeat and breathing. Which is good. Which is great. Which is exactly what I need right now, before I claw my eyes out and go insane. 

Ángel hasn’t questioned why my head is down, or why I put my headphones on, or why I haven’t said a single word to him yet. In fact, he’s minding his own business as per usual, wearing his own earbuds, reading a book and listening to what is very likely something off of Lady Gaga’s  _ The Fame Monster _ —a wild guess based on the last five songs that came up in the queue after hitting Shuffle Play on Ángel’s playlist again. And even though I often wish he’d give me  _ more _ than just a monotone “hey,” give me more than a drizzle of words to word with, the smallest scraps of interest he could muster—right now, I’m grateful for Ángel’s distaste towards conversations. Distance towards everything but his books, which couldn't talk back to him, and his music, which couldn't hurt him, really. The last thing I want is to talk about the Letterman Jacket Pandemonium.

My best friend has no idea the letterman jacket even exists, much less that it's currently robbing me of my will to live, and I wonder what it’s like to live in such blissful ignorance. And not just about cursed jackets, either. About so, so many things. Or, if it wasn't ignorance—how wonderful it must be to care so very little about so many things. I've all but forgotten what it felt like, to live life before I found that damn thing in my closet. Before Valentine's day. The school dance. Everything.

Fuck. My chest hurts and my throat is dry.

I'm not breathing right. I have to.

Four seconds of inhaling, seven seconds of holding, and eight seconds of exhaling came easy to me. These numbers, these words were closer to me than any friend or person had been in ages. I breathe them in and out through my nose, live them carefully, use them as though they themselves were the oxygen and not just a means to an end. I think about the various things I thought in the corner of my mind where nobody but me could ever listen last night, all the empty justifications I made for keeping the jacket, all the ridiculous lies and all the stupid attempts at denying something that was already a fact. I don’t even remember most of them, not even half of them, but I do remember that they all followed one general theme: 

_ It’s not so bad, if I kind of liked Josh back then. There’s nothing wrong with it. _

Just  _ thinking _ about the fact that it was  _ me _ , Alex Alvarez, who was able to say that, even if it was only to myself in my inner monologue, in a little howling world where only me and my screaming demons existed… it still makes me want to hurl. Of  _ course, _ there’s nothing wrong with guys who like guys, love is love and that's not up for debate, but I’m not one of them! It would be bad. It would be really, really fucking  _ bad _ if it turned out that I liked guys, for a myriad of reasons I can't even begin to verbalize. But I don’t, so I  _ don’t _ like boys, so there's really no need to worry, but guess what? _ I’m still fucking worrying! _

I think Angel and Elena have rubbed off on me, and I don't like it.

My headache gets a little worse every time I think, or try to think, or try to stop thinking, and keep on thinking and  _ thinking and thinking and thinking _ about the last night. Last night feels like a raw wound, gaping and still leaking blood and fluid, open to infections and tender to the slightest breeze. The thought of my words pulses with pain, blood rushing beneath bruises. I’d told myself… _ that… _ even though I’m  _ not—that. _

Ugh.

I look up, finally, chin laying on the palm of my hand, and I decidedly tell my brain that enough is enough. I don’t have to keep thinking about this if I don’t want to, and I definitely don't. We’re in the library, after all, our oasis in a desert of stupidity, and it’s lunchtime—might as well get some homework done here so I don’t have to later at home. Lord knows it's hell to get my head in the game the moment I step a  _ toe _ through my bedroom door.

Grabbing my backpack and hauling it onto my lap so I can unzip the endless variety of compartments and sift through the binders, notebooks, and loose papers, a smile tugs at my chapped lips despite myself. This backpack is such an ever-loving disaster that I'm pretty sure that if Elena saw it, she’d lose her mind and go ballistic like those people in  _ Bird Box _ whenever they saw The Thing. Her backpacks and binders and notebooks are so well-organized, tidy and perfectly aligned, almost as if with a ruler. Her handwriting looks like a computer font, and she has tabs and sections dedicated to literally  _ everything _ . All the papers in her binders are fucking  _ numbered,  _ like the pages in a novel, and she has never once failed to write her full name and the date on an assignment. The day she finally does forget, cities will crumble. Continents will shift. Another empire will join the ruins of all the ones that came before them. The dead will rise. A virus will wipe out humanity on a global scale. All those alien movies will finally become a reality.

In all honesty, much as it pains me to admit it, we're actually not all that different when it's  _ organization  _ that we're talking about. I’m usually  _ not _ a messy person, especially when it comes to stuff I really care about—those tidy shelves of shoes were no fluke and their order is no illusion—but I’ve just been really  _ out of it _ lately. Under normal circumstances, my backpack isn’t flooded with stray papers and crumpled-up homework assignments like this, but recently, keeping a neat backpack is the lowest thing in my priority list, second only to practicing the cello. But hey, I know where everything is—it ain't pretty but it sure as hell  _ works. _

I start fishing for an assignment, trying to remember exactly where I put that English paper, but I hear a sharp inhale of brutal  _ horror _ and—the hell? Ángel is presently staring at me like I’ve just risen from the grave during my own wake, one of his earbuds still in his ear, the other held between his fingers. “Um…”

I blink, and then flash a bright smile at him. “Yes?”

“What—and I cannot stress this enough—the  _ fuck _ is wrong with your backpack?”

I smile. “What do you mean?” I ask innocently, humming in triumph as I extract the English assignment from the disastrous blackhole of papers.

“Your backpack is a nightmare," Ángel says flatly. Ah, there's that signature unabashed rudeness of his. I love to see it; it means he's being himself, which means he trusts me, which means a whole 'nother round of things that are dangerous for me to ponder on. "Do you really just stuff loose papers in there and let them get all folded and crinkled?"

I shrug, smoothing out the paper in my hand. "Yeah. It's no big deal. It's not like the papers get ruined or anything."

Ángel has this expression on his face that is nothing short of indescribable. It's a perfect amalgamation of visceral disgust, confusion, disbelief, and horror. I can tell he's reassessing the choice he's made to make me his one and only friend, because the appalled glance he gives my backpack is one someone would make when faced with a serial killer and their newest victim. Then he rubs his temples with his fingertips, looking like I just became his biggest headache to date. "That's…"

"What?" I ask, almost challenging him, raising a brow and curling my mouth. Not a taunt, not necessarily, but definitely  _ something _ . Ángel is a person who can is scathingly honest to the max as a rule of thumb, and whenever he is, it's always fucking hilarious. Even if you're the person he's talking about. Maybe  _ because _ you're the person he's talking about. I'm desperate for him to keep talking. I  _ want _ him to keep talking, even if it's to insult me.

But he doesn't. He just keeps staring me in the same way Mami stares at Schneider whenever he waltzes into the apartment unannounced. Finally, he sighs, a sound weary with the weight of a thousand worlds, and opens his book again. I've lost his interest already. "You hetero boys really are something else, man."

_ You hetero boys. _ My consciousness leaps up at the words Ángel has cast into the air and clings to them, as if they're the only things that can keep me alive, as if they're the cure to a lethal case of anthrax currently consuming my lungs and decay eating at my bones.  _ Fuck, I hope he's right. That jacket, that  _ fucking  _ jacket has got me all kinds of fucked up.  _

I don't let myself falter, though, don't let it show. If I hesitate too long, the train of opportunity will depart and I'll be left alone on a frigid station, waiting for something that might never come back. It's always like that. I open my mouth to ask him to elaborate, already shaping my mouth into a smile, but the words die on the tip of my tongue when I notice Ángel has now placed his other earbud back into his ear, officially signaling an end to the conversation. 

And it's when I find myself yet again at this roadblock, in front of this metaphorical, neon "DO NOT ENTER" sign blocking me from accessing any further conversation with Ángel, when I find myself faced with his million brick walls, that for whatever reason, under the fluorescent, cheap lights of the school library, that I notice, really  _ notice, _ the way my best friend looks for the very first time.

It's a miracle I'd held off this long, really.

There's something about Ángel that makes all my words tumble into the back of my throat and my fingers itch to create something that might last longer than me. There's just something about him. Something that most other people—be it girls, boys, or non-binary joys—simply do not have. It's corny and unrealistic to say that he's special and that I've never seen anyone with this special  _ oomph _ before, but Ángel makes me all those things with his perpetually contradictory nature. This unique thing of his, this magnetic force that I'm unable to deny or avoid, is by no means magical. There's nothing abnormal about it. It's pedestrian and mundane to the extreme, something you've seen a million times before and wouldn't look at twice—and it's that simplicity, precisely that, that makes him so dazzling.

Words can't really begin to describe the way Ángel looks, in all honesty. And neither can drawings, music, poetry or even photographs. No, you have to get your ass over to Echo Park and see for yourself. Nothing could properly make you understand that he was a simple canvas of caramel, ordinary in all ways, until your eyes caught his—and then, nothing about him was normal anymore.

Nothing was normal about gold sharpened into daggers swimming in a sea of chocolate that could drown you. There wasn't a single comforting thing about the cold disregard, the impatience, the shrewd glint of genius or madness that dripped like water off a broken faucet.

I don't think there's any way to capture the way my best friend looks, because nobody can really explain the kind of wonder that is as lethal as it is fascinating. It's impossible to stop this moment in time and save this, just this second that is nothing but one in billions, and put it in a tiny jar—much less his entire aesthetic. It doesn't matter if it's a photo, a sound, a flash drive—it'd all be for null, in the end, because there are certain things that are irreproducible, irreplaceable. That we can never get back exactly the way they used to be. Ángel's sharp edges, digging into everyone that dares get too close indiscriminately, regardless of everything, really, are a great part of why I could never get what I want right this moment. The place in his chest where attachments are meant to be that he's meticulously and clinically hollowed out, leaving it bare safe for bones that seem cracked to my perpetually tired eyes, is another.

Ángel is rough around the edges, like an unfinished sculpture, and though being around him is fun, it hurts. It's like befriending a cactus; the vitriol is not something you can run away from. And yet you stay, for a myriad of reasons, some more reasonable than others, and you take your burns to get your laughs. And to get his. And when he smiles, rare though it may be, the golden daggers soften the slightest bit, and the chocolate is the sweetest thing, and caramel is all you want. You can see all the places that'll cut you in a matter of seconds and yet there's that softness, those gentle round eyes that are so striking, and the dichotomy of it is nauseating.

It's absurd and I can't help but be in awe of it.

The rarity, the infinitesimal chance of finding this kind of jagged, double-edged sword of  _ beauty _ only adds to how precious it is, in the most twisted of ways. This kind of beauty isn't meant to exist, because it seems honed by loneliness and sharpened by pain, trying to appear gentle and holy in its self-destruction. It feels like a crime against humanity. Like people would evolve a million years into the future, into a senseless attempt at a utopia with no discrimination or injustice or illness or ignorance, if only everyone could see just how beautiful Ángel Ruiz is right now, right thus moment, alone in his little cold island, forcing everyone out with an iron fist and denying the warmth offered to him like it'll leave him with third-degree burns.

No, it's not _ the way  _ Ángel looks. If it were that simple, then everyone on earth was like him. It's not about how he looks, it's about who he  _ is _ . It's  _ him.  _ It's him, and it's only him, and it'll only ever  _ be _ him. Ángel Ruiz looks different, so wonderfully different than anyone else ever has, and there aren't sufficient words in the dictionary to do them justice. Because the superficiality of the word "looks" already ruins any chance to ever explain, in proper terms, why he's a hurricane, the leftovers of a tsunami, un aguacero, all fucked into dark skin stitched with white lines at random, little scars that aren't so little in other spots, all hiding stories Ángel will keep in the hollow of his chest forever.

There's scars on his arms, mainly, and the back of his hands. They're not very prominent, shallow and smooth, but they stand out like blood on snow. Strangely enough, they fit the look in Ángel's eyes, those white pathways, like chalk. I can see one right under his eyebrow, framing the top of his eye lightly, so easy to miss it's practically nonexistent. But it's there, and it has a story, one that is surely treasured, one that surely holds all the secrets to the universe Ángel lives in, and suddenly, I want it. I want all of it. 

I want to touch the long, dark curls that turn ruddy brown under the sunlight that occasionally pours in through the windows. I want the moles under his left eye and around his throat. The long eyelashes that cast a curtain around nuclear weapons. The nails, bitten down to bed, with the raw cuticles always bleeding red and the swollen sides. The lip that always has red spots from teeth indents. The long fingers always wrapped around a book. The ears, always used for isolation. The smile most of all, small and faint and fleeting though it may be. I want the arbitrary attitude and everything else.

I want to grab his left and look at his knuckles, pale with light scarring, and ask  _ how _ and  _ why _ and  _ when _ and get a response.

I just want to know more, and I wish I also knew why.

Then the bell rings. Doe eyes flicker up to the clock, daggers sharpened and poison dripping, turning the chocolate into the sweetest of deaths, just before he puts the bookmark into the book, closes it with finality, packs up all his things, and says “later” to me, not even awaiting an answer before exiting the library, leaving me alone to contemplate why the fuck those thoughts decided to cross my mind.

* * *

_ He's crying, and I can't do anything about it. _

_ His eyes are a swelling, crimson already taking over in broad strokes, and tears fall from his eyes faster than I could ever wipe them away. That, I can deal with, because I've seen it before, I think, but the sound of his muffled sobs and his cut-off sniffles claw away at my heartstrings with a vicious lack of mercy, picking at my guts like a crow and chewing them up at whim, leaving behind from the crushed bones and bleeding, gruesome entrails from an unfinished meal. And it's all my fault.  _

_ Crystalline drops roll down smooth, perfect skin, and land on his sleeve, leaving a tiny, faint dark dot on the fabric of the letterman jacket I let him keep because he liked how it always smelled like me—every single one of those teardrops is proof of what I've done to him, how this is all my fault. They add up, slowly accumulating, making a small stain into a puddle in a yellow sleeve, dark and accusing and so  _ real.  _ And I begin to want to cry myself, eyes burning and throat tight, but I don't, because God, how unfair would that be?  _ I'm  _ the one who is in the wrong, not him.  _ I'm  _ the one who screwed up, the one who ruined everything, the one who brought down a rising empire by knocking out a single brick. When you're building a house of cards, all you must do is topple one and the whole thing will come crashing down in a graceless shower of hearts and spades, the ruins of hard work and shattered dreams laying inelegantly for others to dissect. That's what I did.  _ Me.  _ Not my precious prince, my lifeline, my damn reason to be when everything else feels too much—my love, whom I would die for. Whom I love with my heart, and my hands, and my mind, and whatever else I have to give. It's not much, but it's all I have.  _

_ It's not enough, not like this. _

_ I scoot closer to him, hesitance and regret alike making my bones heavy and stilted, and my hands feel alien on his shaking shoulders, the whispering of apologies in his ear feeling like silky poison, like lies coming from the most honest of speakers. I can barely hear my own voice over the sound of his cries. I mean every single word, and yet each falls flat, because there isn't a single word in the Spanish or English dictionary to make this right. I still try. Because trying is all I have, is all I'm good at.  _

_ Trying, and failing. _

_ I try to press my lips to the skin of the crook of his neck, clammy with salt and tears—a habit, something I always do when he’s stressed or scared, but this time the brush of my dry lips is met with his palm on my chest, hard and unrelenting, roughly shoving me away. It catches me so off-guard that I go easy, don't even brace against it. _

_ It hurts. _

_ For someone who is more than half a head smaller than—for someone I could lift off the ground easily, maybe even with one arm if I tried hard enough—the impact of his push is much more violent than it should’ve been. It's like being shoved by Finn; he was a coward but he was strong, if nothing else. It's vicious, full of a fury I've only ever gotten glimpses of, one I've desperately tried to avoid. It's merciless, no pulled punches, and I'm not sure what hurts more: the impact of my back against the wall or the disgust in his gaze. Oxygen eludes me as I and the wall meet in a romantic encounter, chest burning and back twitching with the need to  _ breathe, breathe, you need to breathe _. And I don’t regain my breath. I sit there, heaving against the wall with a hand digging into my chest, not a single bit of air going into my lungs. My respiratory system has undoubtedly been excavated sometime between a push and a kiss, leaving withering lungs and clotting blood. It feels like it was never there at all? like I’m an astronaut floating in space and I just lost my air tank. _

_ It feels a lot like ruin, and I'm not sure recovery is viable. _

_ He looks at me with a tumultuous expression, a storm brewing underneath his furrowed brows. His gaze is alight with an unfamiliar and frightening flame, burning me in a way that makes me feel like a skin graft would never even begin to cover the damage, and his lips twist into a nasty scowl.  _

_ “I don’t want you to kiss me!” he hisses, wiping his tears away with one oversized yellow sleeve. “How could you kiss me if you don’t even know if you love me?” _

_ He's shouting, voice cracking with the emotions turning his face an ugly shade of red and green, and I distantly think I might be going into respiratory distress. _

_ Some time ago, ages or minutes before, he had seen me kissing a girl. I don’t remember what it was like to kiss her, or what color her eyes were, or what shade her hair was, or how tall she was, or whether she smelled good, or what day her birthday was, or what her favorite song was, or what foods she liked, or where she was from, or anything about her. I knew nothing about her. I didn’t even know her name. All I knew was that she was a faceless NPC in a world where I wanted the main character, and that I was going along with a storyline I didn't want. _

_ All I knew was I felt filthy. _

_ The kiss meant nothing—I felt nothing, she was nothing to me—and yet, I knew that it shattered his trust in me. I knew I was done. _

_ Russian roulette with all five bullets in a revolver was not Russian roulette at all. _

_ Air hasn’t returned to my lungs, might not ever return, so I can’t formulate an answer. And even if I  _ could _ breathe, I wouldn’t even know what to say. How do you console the boy you cheated on? How do you say "I fucking love you more than I've ever loved myself," when you did something that added a loud "but it's not enough!"? _

_ It was impossible. _

_ He just cries more, pulling his legs close to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, trying to become small enough that the world will pass him by. “I thought you loved me! I really thought you loved me,  _ God _! But you’re just a fucking liar!” _

_ Every passing second he continues to sob is another I don’t breathe, and every single tear of his is another drop of blood oozing from my hollowed stomach. _

My mattress squeaks like a wraith as I shoot upright in bed, eyes snapping open as I come to. The labored breathing burning through my chest and all the way up to my throat, the sweat beading my forehead and trailing down my back, the lack of air in the room, cold enough to keep me sane because cold is loneliness but at least loneliness makes  _ sense _ —it all prevents me from being able to latch onto bigger details about the dream—or was it a nightmare? Night fucking terror—that I’ve just snapped out of.

All that’s left are the sensations, the phantom pain and the feeling of burning alive, as well as the astronomically-painful feeling of guilt left in the pit of my stomach. It's heavier than weights, crammed into my stomach like kidney stones, and it's crushing my organs. I could vomit.

I find myself unable to do anything but sit in bed and try to regain control of my breathing. I thoroughly consider smashing head against a wall, letting all this come to an end. It'd be gruesome, painful; a fitting punishment, a perfect end to months that have been nothing  _ but _ punishment. It's so tempting I twitch in place, lungs filling with something that tastes like desire, like  _ relief _ . The past few weeks have been, in the simplest of terms, hell on earth. "Life is shit, and then you die" has never sounded more accurate. Life  _ has _ been shit, has been the deepest, darkest, goriest circle of hell. A nightmare. A never ending cycle of disaster. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever,  _ ever _ have I been so fucking...so fucking  _ tired _ from doing nothing. Breathing is excruciating, like someone has placed a slab of stone on my chest, and walking feels like I'm dragging the weight of the world, all of it chained to my ankles. Just existing feels like a responsibility, and it's like I've been burnt all over, and the slightest exposure  _ hurts _ . 

It's not like there's a reason for it. The only that’s  _ been _ happening is my brain running a mile a minute seemingly for kicks, unable to stop pondering and wondering the meaning of a million damn things, searching and scouting for the answers to questions I don't know how to ask, answers I don't want, answers I don't think I'd be able to handle. My mind has become an ocean of why's, of uncertainty and doubt and regret and it all feels like the textbook definition of insanity covered in powdered sugar.  _ Why did I think that?  _ and  _ why did I keep the jacket?  _ and  _ why did I have that moment in the library with Ángel? _ and  _ why do I want it to happen again? _

It hurts and I want to scream and I don't know  _ why _ —and oh, there's another for the endlessly growing pile.

It’s been two fucking weeks since that moment in the school library, since that stupid, mundane second that my brain turned into a big event, when Ángel was doing nothing but listening to music and reading a novel when for some reason, I suddenly thought that he was the most beautiful being in the world. Figure  _ that _ out. Things were already bad before then, but after that moment, all these  _ thoughts _ and  _ questions _ about guys have been living in my mind rent-free, and I’m done. I’m fucking done. I’m  _ sick _ of it. I can’t take it anymore, can't bear another fucking  _ second _ of it, yet, it seems there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

_ There is something _ , a voice whispers, and my lungs ache with  _ want _ , but I ignore, ignore,  _ ignore _ .

I lie back down in bed and breathe, trying to let four, seven, eight seconds drag me to sleep, letting the mantra of numbers soothe me to slumber. But of course, it doesn’t work.

Guilt. Guilt is the one emotion that sticks around from the nightmare I just had, pungent and raw, and there’s something telling me—whether it's an indolent angel or a saccharine demon on my shoulder, or a little birdie chattering outside my window, or the devil inside my head that’s been feasting on my stomach for the past few forevers—that it was my fault. That I broke someone. That I betrayed someone. That I hurt someone I loved.

That I led the score to my own downfall.

The same fear that consumed me the first time I listened to Ángel's playlist comes back with a vengeance, grabbing me by the throat and caving my nose in. Being a failure. A bad husband, a shitty dad. Ruining any chance of good, healthy relationships with the family I build. Destroying it, them,  _ us _ . And having no one to blame but my own fuck-ups, my own selfishness. No, it’d be all  _ me, _ all  _ my own  _ problems. I’d just rather never have kids, never marry, and live from booty call to booty call until a cruel and untimely death than marry, have kids, abandon them, and  _ then _ live from booty call to booty call until a cruel and untimely death. It'll save me a lot of troublesome steps, like divorce and prenups and child support.

That’s probably my ultimate fate: becoming some lonely sex beggar living on the streets with no loved ones or family, blowing people off for money and gratification. Hey, it’s not like I’d be the first one in LA, and I certainly won't be the last. I'm pretty enough, and a fast learner, too, not to mention the handy little skill of being good at getting what I want. My family would probably disown me for never marrying or marrying and then fucking it up, and I'd become a Cuban pariah, dying tainted and alone. And of course, I’d have no kids or romantic partners to turn to, because even if I  _ had _ had them, they would've ran away from me by then. My only friends would likely be the music I listen to, and marijuana, if I really do fall that low again. But I mean, who am I kidding? Of course I would. It's been hard enough not going back to it now, when I've got it pretty made and my biggest problem is my own mind; in that situation, it'd be a no-brainer. Oh—another reason to give good head, I guess, which would be more for the sake of convenience than my own pleasure. It's all so bleak I want to puke. 

The only person who might, just  _ might _ still be by my side is Ángel… 

_ Abandonment. _ It’s an idea that’s always, always terrified the hell out of me, because it takes on the grotesque form of an eldritch monster, following with its laughter and its dark, sharp tendrils of terror. All of it likely began back in the good old days when Mami and Papi were still married, and if he wasn't busy punching walls then he was busy punching  _ her _ , and our house would become a  _ Saw _ location the rest of us. Being left alone, being a disappointment, being a failure…it isn't exactly something I’ve ever aspired to. Or something I wanted. In fact, it's second only to "being ugly" on my list of Top Ten Things I Want To Avoid. Elena was always the top student, honor roll since seventh grade and A+ in every single neatly written paper with flawless grammer. She was always able to impress any adult with her vocabulary, which was about Tibet's size, and knowledge in an endless list of topics most eight-year-olds didn’t know have information on. Meanwhile all I had going for me were my dashing looks and sports skills. 

That's...about it. 

And that's in no way, shape or form nearly enough for  _ anyone _ , really, so I tried. I'm good at trying, if nothing else.I did my best to get passing grades in school so Mami didn’t have another reason to be mad, the best I could to make sure I was great at both Spanish  _ and _ English to satisfy my Abuelita, the best I could to be a source of happiness for everyone in my family when things weren’t okay. I made myself a clown, a jester, a buffoon so long as it got me a few laughs, even one smile. I thought it was my job to put a smile on everyone’s faces, to keep things going when everything was falling, and I was right—it still is my responsibility, to this day. Hell, I’m the whole ass reason Elena will even be willing to listen to someone  _ speak of _ Papi; had I not stepped in and the whole P debacle never happened, they still wouldn’t be on speaking terms because neither one of them would want to say the first word. I was the one who gave Dr. B advice on how to talk to my Abuelita—though a grown-ass old man asking a thirteen-year-old for advice about women was...kind of sad—when he couldn’t figure out how to confess his feelings for her. I’m my Abuelita’s golden  _ nieto, _ the one who can never do any wrong and who deserves anything he asks for. 

But… but it’s these  _ thoughts _ , these goddamn feelings and emotions that have been plaguing me over the past month that threaten to dismantle and destroy all of that. To make what I’ve been building for a steady fifteen years crumble, fall to the ground, disintegrate into dust and be blown away into the wind. My entire life is turning to sand and slipping through my fingers, and I can't do jackshit about it.

I remember Elena's Quinces, and everything leading up to them. I remember the mistakes and all the missteps and all the things that never should have been. Most of all, I remember how Papi reacted when Elena said that she was… that she wasn’t straight—and what it did to Elena. She stopped eating for a while, half of breakfast left on the table, lunch all but forgotten, dinner a tedious affair. Took his photo down from her wall, and stuffed it in her drawer beneath her socks, where she wouldn't have to see him unless she sought him out. Stayed up late every night crying, because how was it that a guy she was barely friends with and the landlord cared for her better than her own father? It scared the shit out of my mom, out of my Abuelita, out of  _ me _ . What if this went on for ages and ages, for years until the problem was a disaster and she needed help, until it ruined her life? It was terrifying.

And while Elena was suffering in front of all of us, somehow still trying to put on a brave face and deal with every single day after her  _ quinces _ like nothing had happened, we knew that something within her had changed. Something had cracked, splinters waiting to lodge in her tissue and bleed her bone-dry. Ready to snap, shatter. And that same  _ something _ changed just a little bit more, every single new day that nothing but radio silence came from our Papi. It was killing her, slowly and almost softly, and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it.

Until I did.

Being the only son in a Latino family comes with expectations. Many expectations, which aren't expectations at all, because they're responsibilities. The title of a Latino son comes with an insurmountable weight on your shoulders, a destiny that you’re expected to fulfill no matter what. A script written specifically for your life, in stone and with the blood of your ancestors, signed with, "And so it shall be done." From the get-go, as soon as your parents deem you old enough to understand human dialect, it’s drilled into your brain by your mother and abuelita that you’re going to grow up to eventually marry a nice Hispanic girl and have tons of kids. You're going to be a lady killer, a great husband, a top-notch father with a wife that will tend to your every need. In the same vain, however, it’s also drilled into your brain by your father and abuelito—and sometimes even their wives, too—that women are the most beautiful things on Earth, and that it is your sacred, God-given duty to let them know just how hot they are, and that “no” means “yes,” and “don’t take no for an answer.” There’s a major contradiction in the way boys like me are raised: we’re supposedly Catholic, so we’re supposed to be courteous gentlemen who don’t have sex until marriage, and who respect women, and cherish them. Yet we’re also taught to be perverts. El mensaje está más torcido que un ocho. 

Whenever your papá or tío or abuelo pick you up from school, and a group of girls walks out of the school to go home, he’ll always ask you which one is your girlfriend, or which one you’re into. And even if you’re not dating any of them or are into any of them, you still say that they’re pretty. And if you don’t think  _ they’re _ pretty, well then, what kind of girl  _ do _ you like? Provide a detailed description, of hair color and skin color and eye color and body type and cleavage size and personality and temperament. Rank the ideal woman, you've got 30 seconds, go. We've got to be able to catcall and be gross right out of the gates, barely out of the womb, but somehow, that's meant to align with us being good Catholic men who go to Sunday Mass with our wives and kids.

And when I was younger, I was fine with this! The double-standard hardly registered on me, and I was able to follow the rules perfectly, to a T. I never disappointed my abuelito or my Papi or any of my tíos. Never disappointed my abuelita, or Mami. And it wasn’t like I’d been faking any of it—I really did genuinely believe that girls were as hot as all the hype said they were—and I still do! God broke the mold with women. I’d been on my way to fulfilling all the expectations a Latino  _ hijo _ is supposed to fulfill, finally on the path to personal stardom, until the incident with Chloe and the art museum and the boob-honking. Now that was  _ not _ a fun day. In fact, it was remarkably shitty, don’t like to look back on it, because my mouth always tastes like ash when I do, but ever since that day, I haven't been able to see the all the things I'd been taught as anything but fucking disgusting. Hearing how a creep's actions were so similar to mine, and how they affected my own sister and her Sydnificant other, someone who's family… it really put things into perspective.

I still want to kill those guys who were harassing them. I still might. Why wouldn't I?

Now  _ that's _ a piece of Latino code I value.

After that whole incident, I’d decided it’d be best to at least  _ try _ to listen to whatever Elena was saying about consent and stuff, no matter how confusing it was, or how many exceptions and special cases there were. Listening to Elena rant about social justice issues isn’t exactly fun or even easy, because it gives me a headache more often than not and is just a pain in the ass as a norm, but at least it’s  _ important _ . It’s like a boring class, except you can’t say “when are we ever going to use this?” because it actually  _ is _ useful.  _ However _ —just because I'd begun listening to Elena’s words of wisdom, starting on the path to enlightenment, doesn't mean I suddenly dropped my quest to be the ultimate Latino  _ hijo: _ marry a girl and have a ton of kids. I hadn’t suddenly decided to become a disappointment just because I also wanted to respect women now. In fact, Mami had been even prouder of me for it, as well as my overall growth and maturity; I could tell when she’d finally handed me my phone back after four months of being grounded. It was one of my greatest moments of glory and triumph.

But surprise, surprise, it was only my family that was okay with a straight guy not objectifying women. 

Me calling out Finn's bullshit, followed closely by that of his sluts, was just the very tip of the iceberg. I was the only one with enough balls to tell Finn to knock it off when he kept pestering a girl who couldn't have been less interested, the only one who asked Finn to stop sending lesbian porn links in our group chat, the only one who wouldn’t laugh at his homophobic and racist jokes—and I still can’t wrap my head around how he think I, a Cuban boy with a gay sister, would enjoy them. Or allow them. Even just ignore them. 

That was all okay, though, losing the friendship I had with Finn and his sluts. Not that we had much of that to begin with, our so-called bond forged largely on convenience and intimidation, with a dash of admiration that withered and died pretty quickly. In the end, it was fine due to one very simple reason: Because Finn happens not to have a modicum of authority over me. He can’t take away my phone when I smoke weed, or yell at me to clean my room when it’s messy, or ground me when I call my sister  _ una puta gringa comemierda. _ He doesn’t like what I’m doing? Tough shit. Deal with it, or piss off. Your choice! And if you'd like to go for the third alternative—fisticuffs—be my guest! I've got enough practice to win by now. And the same applies to all of Finn’s sluts, and every other friend I have in my life, and every single person I ever meet. Even Ángel—though I doubt that we’d ever get to that point. I put up with his shit, sure, because the profit is greater than the loss, but if things ever changed...well. That's something else.

I had gotten rid of my shitty friends, which meant I didn't have any. I hadn’t disappointed my family yet, which meant I kept trying. I was respecting women, which meant I kept shrugging off all the odd looks. Everything was going great until that motherfucking letterman jacket decided to pop out of my closet and fuck up my life, like some poltergeist in a good horror film, or a zombie in one of the films thag traumatized Schneider when I was seven. Nasty stuff. 

That ridiculous bumblebee-colored cloth from hell that’s way too comfortable to wear threatens to blow air onto my delicate, trembling house of cards. Because if I have to tell my family that I’m… not what I think I am—my world will come crashing down like a jenga tower. Those Latino  _ hijo _ expectations, however gross or wrong they are? I  _ want _ to meet them! I want to make my family proud! I want them to have something about me that they can pronounce with pride. Hell, the only thing I’m known for is having a great smile. I’m the hottest  _ primo,  _ the smoothest and most dashing; of course everyone is going to remember me for my looks, and I have absolutely no problem with that because, I mean—have you seen me? But at the same time, it kind of fucking sucks that that’s  _ all _ that’s memorable about me. The only remarkable thing about me. I mean, hell, even  _ Elena _ has something else other than being loud and proud. She’s super fucking smart—she’s going to get into every damn Ivy league school, breeze her way through college thrice and become the first doctor-lawyer-president. Mami is a veteran and a nurse practitioner. Abuelita, besides everything that comes with her being, well— _ Abuelita _ —fled Cuba and came to America, building a whole life for herself with only Abuelito and the siblings she had to take care of by her side. 

Everyone here is a  _ strong independent woman. _ Everyone here has a thing they love, and they’re fucking great at it. Everyone here will make change, will leave a mark, will do  _ something _ . What do  _ I _ have? What’s  _ my _ thing?

Being super hot is nice and all, but perfect teeth—thank you, braces—and caramel skin and fantastic hair and a jawline that could cut diamonds are not personality traits. I may like the way I look, a  _ lot _ , but… it doesn’t add anything to my value at this point. It’s the same reason why I got sick of having a new girlfriend every Monday; they didn’t care about  _ me, _ they cared about the likes I got them on their Instagrams, nothing more. Being pretty is good, and it's useful, but in the end, beauty fades and then what will I have? Oh, that's right—nothing.

And yet, the ease I have in finding a girlfriend seems to assure my whole family that I’ll be  _ fine _ , that I’ll live up to fulfill my promises, the things they told me, the things they taught me. That their idea of what my future will look like won’t change or distort or shatter in any way, shape, or form. That it'll remain static and blissfully stagnant, keeping me in some sort of frozen contentment. And honestly? I’m fine with that. As long as my family’s happy, I can breathe. Breathe air. Breathe real oxygen emanating from the trees of the earth that provides life to all other people on the planet. I can keep breathing and breathing, because my lungs won't be punctured and my ribs won't be broken and my chest cavity won't be hollow and I'll be  _ breathing _ and I'll be  _ fine _ .

I don’t want to stop breathing. I don’t want to start trying to breathe underwater, water filling my lungs as I attempt to swim back up to the surface to fulfill their expectations, except I’m a million miles below sea level, the pressure crushing my bones, and every time I reach the surface, a tidal wave hits, sending me right back down to rock bottom.

I've been claimed by the depths, and the sirens are calling, and I don't want to go, but who am I to say no?

Let me breathe. Please,  _ God, _ let me breathe.

Somehow, someway, my mind drifts off into what might be a dream or might be a nightmare, the endless scenarios starring are all caught in my throat like all the words I can never utter, threatening to cut off the air from entering my lungs any further.

Sand is piling in my lungs like dust, the ashes of every time my ribs start to expire, and I'm not sure how much more I can take before they cave in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, to be clear, this chapter ends on the night that Elena steals his jacket and phone. The end of this chapter occurs, _then_ Elena came in and stole his belongings. No, Alex was not dreaming about cheating on "him" while Elena was taking his phone.
> 
> Next chapter will come on schedule, if God is a good man.


	15. The Letterman Jacket V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex's worst nightmare comes alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are so sorry we've been posting off-schedule lately.
> 
> We're both pretty busy, and like I said before, my cowriter Gab has a fucky knee. So.
> 
> Also, we're sorry in advance about this chapter. Don't read this in public.
> 
> ~~Just kidding, we're not sorry :D~~

**_The Letterman Jacket V: Alex Alvarez_ **

The covers are too heavy on my chest, stones keeping me down as I sit up, heart spiking in response to some kind of unknown fright. 

The last wisps of my dreams, shapeless and pale, slide through my fingers too quickly for me to hold onto them, but it's got to be at least three in the morning, and I couldn’t give less of a shit about what just happened in my dream. My hands clench around the sheet clinging to my mattress, even though I could’ve sworn on a Bible that I’d fallen asleep on top of the letterman jacket. I was holding it, like a teddy bear, close to my chest, clinging to the phantom of its warmth. But it’s gone now. Huh.

I nod to myself dazedly, thinking about settling back down and just shrugging off whatever this was, and I'm starting to do just that when the thought registers entirely and I jerk so hard I almost fall out of bed.

_ The letterman jacket is gone. _

I wasn’t aware that it was possible for your heart to literally explode inside of your chest without immediately ending your life, but apparently it is, because my heart inflates to about thrice it’s regular size before detonating, leaving me with no pulse or heart rate or way to ensure that I’m still alive and here, that this is all still real.

I’m half-expecting to wake up from another nightmare. I want to wake up from another nightmare. I pinch myself, twist the skin when the spike of pain doesn't make my surroundings shift, dig my nails in as panic rises in my throat.

I want this to be a dream. I want to wake up. But I don't. Because it isn't.

I'm wide awake.

_ And the letterman jacket is gone. _

Scrambling out of bed and ripping the blankets off my bed, I air them out frantically to see if the jacket will fall out or something, praying to any god that will listen for it to just be twisted in my blankets or curled up under my pillow. A headache begins to build in the back of my head, pulsing relentlessly, and it makes me want to give up the search and let the devil take me already, but at the same time it only reinforces the urgency of missing such an item. Having a headache this intense, pounding through my skull like I got hit by a shovel, only amplifies how big a deal this shit is.

_ How is it gone? Who could’ve taken it? _ I wonder as I check my bedsheets for the third time, get on my knees to look under my bed and crawl to my feet to look in my closet. I don’t dare to turn the lamplight on, though; the last thing I need is for someone to wake up and ask me what I’m so frantically looking for, tell me to sit down and explain why I am panicking at three AM. 

That being said, I’ve never been the greatest at not making so much noise.

I breathe heavily through my nose, four-seven-eight be damned, and I must sound like a 30-year-old chainsmoker out on a run, but it's the best I can do without dying or waking up the whole building. I run my hands through my hair over and over as I approach my nightstand to grab my phone, patting every square inch of its surface before I realize it’s not in my nightstand. My heart free falls into my abdomen. So I check in my drawer, and under my pillows and in my bed sheets and under my bed and in my closet and then I do it all again, until I can't push back reality, can't fool myself into thinking I just left it outside or in my pocket. Because I didn't. I didn't leave it in my jeans or twisted in my sheets. I left it in the letterman jacket, and my lungs are crushed by terror stronger than any kind of gravity. 

_ Run, _ a little voice in my head tells me, sick and sweet, and I obey it.

Fuck trying to be quiet; it was a lost battle since the very beginning, and I let my feet dig into the wooden flooring like I can break through it, likely alerting Mami and Abuelita and Elena that either I've gone mad or we have a burglar as I sprint out the front door and down the hallway, not knowing where I’m headed. The door slams into the wall on the way out, and I wince, but I don't slow down; I just run faster. 

I stop dead in my tracks after booking it down a whole flight of stairs, realizing I have no destination. I slowly sit down in the hallway, methodically leaning my back against the wall, and calmly asking myself: _now,_ _who the hell would do this?_

Well.

Mami wouldn’t. If she thought that there was something suspicious about the letterman jacket, she would’ve just asked me about it… probably. I can do no wrong in Abuelita’s eyes, and besides, it’s about three in the morning and she would’ve already Fabulosoed the kitchen sink an hour ago. Elena… 

Elena is different. Elena has no rhyme or reason, for better or for worse—usually for better for the world, and for worse for me. Syd, too, was unfortunately in the same category, due to having the bad habit of following in Elena's footsteps. Those two were a menace. After all...it was Elena and Syd that stalked me during the “P” debacle. That went all out when they thought, for a brief, fleeting moment that “P” might be a boy.

I think my esophagus might have started attempting to eat itself, because by the time my feet have carried me back into the apartment and into Elena’s room, the organ is nowhere to be found. I stick my hands out like a Minecraft zombie and reach through the air uselessly, walking forward until my body bumps into her bed. It hurts, the slightest dig of the metal frame on my hip, but the fast come-and-go of my breath keeps the pain at bay better than any painkiller. I swallow. Now or never. I put my hands down on the mattress and blanket, pressing in.

There is no sound but the one of the blankets pressing on thin air. There is no warmth but the one of my own hands. There isn't anything on the bed but a nest of guilt and crime, and there isn't a single living being in this room other than myself. So where, pray tell, is my fucking sister?

Not the bathroom; the door would be closed and the light would be on. Not in the kitchen, or in the living room. Not in the fire escape, because the window wasn't cracked. And she’s not ballsy enough to hide in either Mami or Abuelita’s room—not that I am, either. I do not want to know what a veteran does when suddenly and rudely awoken by someone they perceive to be an intruder, thank you very much. I also do not need Abuelita to have another stroke. 

_ Where would I go if I decided to steal my brother’s secret shame like a fucking psycho? _ No, scratch that—where do I normally go when I need to get out of the apartment in the middle of the night? The fire escape, maybe, but getting up there normally makes too much noise, not to mention the cold and the fear of slipping and cracking your skull open on the railing. Not a very pretty picture. I probably would’ve woken up at the sound of it, and trying to get up there now… well, that’d wake up Abuelita and Mami, though the door somehow hadn't. Figures. 

The only other place I would go is the laundry room, because apparently detergent and fabric softener were therapeutic. Maybe Schneider’s place, too, but… honestly, that’s more of a last-resort. A very last-resort.

And I’m off, my legs taking me down to the laundry room at a pace that somehow feels both too fast and too slow, like I could run a hundred miles an hour and it still wouldn't be enough, like I could crawl on sand grains and it would still be too fast. My footsteps are less like footsteps and more like hooves stomping down on cold concrete, and I’m very likely waking up people in all the units I whizz past, but I don’t give a shit about them. I don't care about a single person right now. At this moment, at three AM, with my heart on the verge of collapse and my lungs a moment away from respiratory distress, nobody matters. I don’t even know any of the people in this building except for Schneider and Avery, but they live on the upper floor anyways, and Schneider is probably wearing noise-cancelling headphones and playing bonsai-tree ASMR or something equally Schneider-y.

What I do to the door of the laundry room can hardly be called, as the weight of my whole body is thrown on it, cop movie style. I wouldn't be surprised if I ruined the lock; I also wouldn't care if I did. It opens, predictably, though it does so with a God-awful sound, and I see my dear ol' sister Elena peacefully sitting up against a washing machine, holding a phone in her hand and placidly scrolling through it.

But of course, that’s not just any phone, because what would be of my life if things went my way only once? I know that case. And that pop-socket. And the bumblebee article of clothing in her lap, perfectly innocent, mocking me with a saccharine grin. 

Her name escapes my throat like a mangled cry.  _ “Elena?” _

Her face goes as red as a tomato, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose as she snaps around to look at me, eyes wide and panicked. She shushes me very loudly, hands flailing the way they do when she's freaking out. “People are sleeping, Alex, you gotta think about our neighbors!"

All the air in the room is sucked into my failing lungs, and it's too much, the rush of oxygen making them quiver in place and shrivel up, punching the air out of my body with a sound akin to dying gurgle, as my chest twitches and caves in on itself. God, this was too much. My eyes go as wide as planets as I give my sister a look like she’s the dumbest person to ever set foot on Earth, digging my nails into my palm. I want to stay calm, and be bigger and better than her, but aborted attempts at deep breaths are all I can do not to scream. 

_ “Me importa un puto carajo,” _ I hiss, surprised smoke isn't coming out of my ears. I walk forward slowly, the strain of stilted steps an ache in my calves, my thighs. _ “¿Qué mierda estás haciendo con mi teléfono a las tres de la puta mañana?” _

I snatch my phone away from her, hearing a startled sound of pain from her, and look at the screen. It's the Search menu on Snapchat, where Elena has evidently been typing Josh's name. Surprise and confusion filter in first, two waterfalls waging a war to see which one will flood the town first, until my vision darts to her again, where she’s clutching the jacket to her chest, almost protective—

_ Oh. _

Two and two come together in my head magnificently, all those hours agonizing over math finally making a perfect four, and the headache scorching through my skull slides into a full-blown migraine. I almost fall over at the sudden rush of blood swirling through my head, body cold and forehead hot, eyes much too heavy and wide; my phone is cool when it touches my forehead, the heel of my hand on my temple. It hurts. I steady myself with a hand on the washing machine next to me, teeth coming together with an audible  _ clack _ . I can’t even think about  _ trying  _ to four-seven-eight my ass out of this right now, not when my vision blurs with the severity behind the pounding of my head and my knuckles ache with how tight my grip on the washer is. We are way,  _ way _ past trying to calm down, because it would seem that I’ve already taken my last breath before being plunged underwater. It’s all over for me now.

It's done. 

I shudder as I lean over to my sister, snatching the jacket from her in the same way I’d taken my phone. Elena doesn't put up a fight, because the moment my hand comes closer to her, she flinches as if I’m about to hit her, eyes wide and frantic behind her glasses, and she stumbles back a step before her back hits the washer, and she realizes that  _ oh _ —she's trapped. The look of dread that falls on her face is positively panicked, pale and sweaty. She looks like she's going to have a panic. I want to tell her that she  _ should _ be scared, that she  _ should _ be protecting herself, that she should be running. But I remember that look on Mami's face, remember the same heaving breaths and shaking hands clenching on a surface. I’ve forgotten how to use human dialect, a stone stuck in my throat—a landslide of rocks, washing down all my words and crashing through my vocal chords, sinking into my stomach like knives.

_ Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp _ away from Elena, taking long, stiff strides to the other side of the laundry room, away from the temptation to turn into that which I hate so much, the fear of being the same monster down the hall when I was a kid. I collapse against another washing machine and curl up into a small ball, a mess of elbows and knees and limbs, trying to become invisible and negligible, to hide from the world. Maybe, so long as I don't dig my head out of my arms, I don't have to face any of this. Maybe, I can just sit here and let the world pass me by, cold and lonely and  _ safe _ . The letterman jacket in my arms, warm and innocent, and I realize with a sudden, violent fervor that I  _ never _ want to see this fucking thing ever again. Guess I’ll put it in the dumpster tonight, never to be seen again; I might even throw myself in there as well, live among the trash and the forgotten, the forsaken. Might as well.

My heartstrings snap like weary, worn yarn, letting my heart make a speedy free fall into oblivion, into despair, into ruin. And I drown, in fury and hurt and shame. And I sink, and I keep trying to breathe, trying to get air into my lungs, trying to convince myself I’m actually fucking breathing, actually still alive, and not sitting on the steps of hell, the Devil's hand snug around my neck. And then the tears start to come and I want to stop them, I really try to, but no matter how hard I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes, no matter how hard I clench my jaw, no matter how many times I blink them back—they're just there, falling out of my eyes in clear, pathetic little trails and I tug at my hair, yank hard enough my scalp burns, run my hands through my hair—

But I’m not running them through my hair. No, I’m violently raking my nails against my scalp, hard enough I can feel the ache, feel the skin cave, feel the labyrinth I'm carving into my skin, feel the hot stickiness accumulate under my nails as I scratch and scratch and  _ scratch _ , and I want to  _ leave _ . I want to leave, and I can't breathe and I don't want to be here, and I can't stand it here. I can't stand to be here, to sit inside my own skin, to know that the thing beating against my ribs like a wild animal is my own heart, and this is my body, and my ribs, and my life, and I don't want it. I don't want any of it. I don't want these failing lungs, or this arrhythmic heart, or this ticking time bomb of a head, and I don't want these tears and these eyes and these hands and these nails and I don't want this body who only hurts and aches and I don't want this,  _ me _ . I want to get a knife and slit my throat and I think laughter's bubbling up in my chest at the thought of choking on the blood, making angels of crimson iron and water on the laundry room's tiles.

I want to bang my head against one of these washing machines until there’s blood staining every square inch of impeccable white metal, every single crevice of the tiled floor, because it’s over— _it’s over, it’s over, it’s_ ** _over_** _,_ and I’m _done_ for and that’s _it_ and that’s _all_. _I’ll_ **_never_** _be able to live up to anyone’s expectations, never be able to do anything the way I'm_ _supposed_ _to, do anything_ ** _right_** _, and Papi will_ ** _hate_** _me_. He will **hate me, and I'm going to die alone, and I don't want to die, I don't want to die,** ** _I don't want to die_** **, I want to stop this, I want this to be over, I want to crawl out of my skin and set it on fire, I want to run, I want to hide, I want to** ** _scream_** **, I want** ** _SOMEONE HERE. SOMEONE HERE TO LISTEN TO ME AND HUG ME AND KISS ME AND TELL ME IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY, SOMEWHERE WHERE WE ARE FAR AWAY FROM EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. AND I_** ** _NEVER FUCKING HAVE TO SEE OR HEAR OR LISTEN TO ANYONE HERE EVER AGAIN BECAUSE IT’S OVER, MY LIFE HERE IS OVER, AND THAT’S IT, AND THAT’S ALL, AND—DON’T_** **TOUCH** ** _ME, ELENA, STOP IT, GET AWAY FROM ME, I DON’T WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU EVER AGAIN, I CAN'T BEAR TO LOOK AT YOUR FACE, JUST GO AWAY, JUST LEAVE ME_** **ALONE—**

**AND I DON'T REALIZE I'M YELLING UNTIL SHE LOOKS ME IN THE EYES, TERROR AND HURT AND REGRET AND OH,** **_GOD_ ** **, I CAN'T STAND THOSE EYES, I CAN'T STAND THAT LOOK, I CAN'T STAND THIS, I CAN'T, I CAN'T, I** **_CAN'T_ ** **.**

**_Her hands are on my shoulders, digging in hard enough to bruise, grip shaky and weak; her glasses are covered in steam and water, because she’s crying,_ ** _ she’s crying tears like me, her eyes bloodshot red and her nose bright pink, and she’s sniffling _ and she’s saying, “Alex, Alex, Alex…”

And I think she’s breathing. 

She’s breathing, unlike me.

She’s inhaling, and holding her breath, and exhaling. 

For four seconds, seven seconds, eight seconds. 

For four decades, seven centuries, and eight lifetimes. 

For four. For seven. For eight.

Four-seven-eight

Four-seven, eight. 

Four, seven, eight. 

Four. Seven. Eight.

I’m breathing.

I'm breathing again, lungs expanding and contracting, chest rising and falling.

But it's temporary.

But it'll fade away.

But it's over.

But I'm only using five, seven, eight moments as a crutch, a respirator, to keep my lungs going, force them to pump and work when I can't make them. 

But I'm codependent on much more than oxygen for survival. 

The letterman jacket is in my fist now, crumpled up and covered in a million tiny drops of moisture. My phone is laying on the floor where I was once standing, abandoned, and I can't help but feel my organs are laying beside it. There’s a dent in the washing machine that I just kicked while I was pushing Elena away, and it scares me, scares me more than she scares me, scares me more than pain, scares me more than everything else. Scares me because the washing machine is metal, and it's strong, and Elena is flesh and bone, and she's not. Not like that.

And Elena’s hands are on my shoulders, even though I probably hurt her, even though I probably kicked her, even though I could have  _ punched _ her—and I’m breathing, and it sounds like a dying whisper, and it's only for a little while.

I miss empty lungs and a heart on the verge of explosion. There's no guilt in death and misery. 

She keeps crying. She looks terrified. She looks like she did in my room when we were kids. She looks like a child. She looks like she fucked up bad.

She looks like she's ruined someone's life. 

I can't hear the words she's saying, can't make out the messages she's trying to communicate, can't understand the words mouthed by quivering lips. All I can hear is the crying, because Elena is crying, and crying, and she won’t stop  _ crying _ . And even though all I can feel is terror, all I can feel is panic, all I can feel is a train collision in my chest where organs smash against walls and windows and splatter into messes like people—I can feel it. It isn't quite pain, isn't quite fury, isn't quite curiosity, isn't quite anything.

It's just something that makes my voice too steady and too quiet when I say, "Why are you crying?”

Elena blinks, shuffles back on her knees, coughs into her wrist. “Huh?”

“What are you crying for?” I repeat, serene, words like cyanide on my tongue, and I feel like foam might start dripping out of my mouth at any moment. My fingers tighten around the fabric of the jacket; tight, tight, tighter. Tight enough to kill. “You have nothing to cry about, do you?”

Elena stares at me wordlessly, the fog of her glasses clearing up enough for me to make out big, swollen brown eyes, shiny with tears that fall down silently. It's almost curious, that stare, as if she’s waiting for me to continue speaking. So I do.

“So, are you just going to sit there and cry? No explanations, no defenses, no excuses? No talking yourself out of this one? Where'd all the rationalizations and arguments and witty commentary go?”

Is it amusement? Bitterness? Is it rage after all? Or some twisted sort of relief, some kind of depraved need to laugh? Maybe it's my way of spiting her, of making her lash out? Maybe I want her to get angry? Maybe I want an excuse?

_ Maybe I want it to hurt.  _

Elena stammers and babbles, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose every time she pushes them up, and she's skittish. She can't look me in the eye, shuffles further away and then stands up, taking two steps back, one step forward. Two steps forward, one back. There's something clawing its way up my throat, leaving gashes that bleed right into the acid burning through my bones, and it's laughter, rancid and acerbic. It tastes like lemon drops. 

“Go ahead, talk!” I might be grinning, spreading my arms in some grand gesture, like I'm not holding the personification of my shame in one white-knuckled fist and my kidney in the other. I wave the jacket in her direction. “How the fuck did you get this? Why did you steal my jacket and phone? Those questions should be easy enough, yeah?”

Elena clears her throat, wipes her glasses off one, two, three times before shakily sliding them. She takes a breath for four seconds, holds it for seven seconds, lets it out for eight. She does it again. It reminds me of smoking. It reminds me that not everyone swims deeper into the ocean to stop drowning. 

“A few weeks ago, Mami told me to go wake you up. I went, tried to shake you awake, but you wouldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried so...so I shook you harder. The blanket came off and I—I saw you asleep with," she swallows, a sound that sounds more like a hiccup, like inhaling helium. Waves a hand. Breathes. "With the letterman jacket. And I couldn’t believe it, seeing you with that jacket, especially after so long, so I…so I took a picture of you and sent it to Syd." 

A devastating blow to the gut. Her words are a horrendous punch in the stomach, a punch from someone who stuck a knife between their knuckles before going in for the kill. This is a blitz attack in Times Square, an assassin in a horde of nobodies, and this is me, crumpling to the ground with a punctured kidney, staining the dirty pavement and the mounting snow with ugly blood.

But she isn't done.

_ Of course. _

“And," she continues, almost pleading, almost hysterical, "and we thought you might be dating Josh Flores. Because it was his jacket, right? It made—it made sense. It made sense…"

Is she trying to convince me? Some higher power? Herself? I don't know, and I'm not sure I ever will, but I do know that none of us seem to believe her. 

"So we started…”

She suddenly trails off, breath catching in her throat and eyes widening behind her glasses, tears gathering on her lashes. Red, on brown, on white, on red, on black. It's ugly.  _ We're _ ugly. 

“What?” I croak, trying to make my voice harsher, my words steadier. But I'm drowning, and the water pressure is mounting, and I can't do this, I can't do this at all. “By all fucking means, keep talking.”

Elena's next breath becomes a pitiful, quiet sob, glasses coming off jerkily as she frantically wipes at them, frantically swipes at her tears. Her hands gesture, and her glasses whip around madly, dangerously, and she's red in the face and red in the eyes and red in light, and it's all so,  _ so _ ugly. 

“It's just—" four seconds. Seven seconds. She doesn't manage eight seconds. "It's all hitting me, and I—God, this was so fucking  _ stupid,  _ this was all so damn stupid,  _ I'm _ so stupid. I—I'm sorry, Alex, I'm so sorry…"

“What did you do?” I demand, and it's a whisper, a sound of weakness and fear and  _ shame _ . 

Shame fisted in my hands. Shame hanging from her fingers. Regret dripping off her cheeks. Fear crusting on mine. Self-loathing shining in her eyes. Anger dying in mine. Red in our eyes, red on our skin, red inside our collapsing chests. Red on the tiles, on the floor; an endless expanse of vermillion dripping from us, from an amputation, from an attempted assassination. 

_ I wish the hitman would've been successful. _

Red on white, red on brown, red, red, red. 

She inhales like she's dying, and four seconds pass.

She holds it as she shakes, and seven seconds tick by.

She lets it go as I die, and eight seconds breathe me back to life.

Back to hell.

Back to something I do not want.

"We—" She flinches, full-bodied, like I've struck her. Her eyes fall shut, regret and pain. She looks like a painting. "We started investigating whether you were…whether you were dating him or not. We… we started stalking both of you, and. And we even invited Josh out to coffee so we could talk to him in pers—"

" _ WHAT _ ?" I say. Or maybe I yell? I'm not quite sure. My throat aches and the word feels too, too loud, but...but I've whispered things that feel even louder. I don't know. I do not know.

I don't  _ know _ . I don't know anything. 

_ My sister fucking thinks I was dating her  _ quinces  _ escort. My sister thinks I'm dating Josh. My sister thinks I'm dating a guy. My sister knows I want to— _

"Do you know how  _ stupid _ that is?" Disbelief? Fury? Delirium? I don't know, I don't know, I don't  _ know _ —

"I do now, I swear I do!" Elena vows desperately, digs a hand into her hair and  _ pulls _ . "I—I didn't want to believe it was all a wild goose chase, I didn't want to accept I was wrong. The—the idea of you being queer, it made me so  _ excited _ because then we'd finally have something in common again! Because someone would—" she cut-off suddenly, eyes boggling as she choked on nothing but words and regrets. "Nevermind that. We just—we haven't had a conversation in so long, Alex! It's been forever! It's like we're not even brother and sister anymore, and I—fuck, I just couldn't deal with that!"

There they are again. Tears, fat and salty and  _ ugly _ , dripping like faucets that were carelessly left open. She's tried wiping them away, she's tried ignoring them, she's tried staunching the flow—nothing works, nothing is satisfactory, so she lets them drip, lets them stain the ground and dillude the coagulating blood. It isn't pretty, isn't poetic, isn't nice. It's just blood and saltwater and I can taste bile.

"For fuck's sake, Elena," is all I can muster, all I can say in a voice that's barely louder than a whisper, turning away from her and running a hand through my hair, scrubbing it down my face. God, what a mess we've made. "Elena, there are  _ ways _ . There were a dozen, a  _ million _ other things you could've done. Why the hell did it have to be  _ this _ ? What you did was fucking insane."

"But that's why I  _ did _ it, Alex!" Elena takes a step in my direction, drops her glasses on top of a washing machine carelessly and reaches for me blindly, desperate—but I step back, step  _ away _ . 

"Oh my  _ God _ , Elena,  _ stop _ ," I burst out, and it's half a snap and half a plea. I stare at my sister in disbelief, like she's a whole different person, like I've never seen her before, like I never knew her like now. "For real? For  _ real? _ "

I slide down to the floor, crumple into a graceless heap and my hands begin running through my hair of their own accord, harsh and violent, and it's not enough, it's not enough, it's not enough. I dig my nails in further, pull harder, push my heels into the ground until it burns, until I'm on fire, and it's still not nearly enough. There's laughter in the air, low, and cracking at odd places, and hollow, and oh so amused. And it takes me longer than it should to realize it's mine.

"Wow," is the first thing that comes out of my mouth, sarcasm and bitterness and a disgusting sort of awe all in one single syllable. "You know, for someone so smart, you can think of the dumbest crap. God, Elena, this is ridiculous!"

"I get it!" Elena exclaims furiously, sounding like Mami, but the anger crumbles in her palms and slides through her fingertips like cigar ash, and she deflates a popped balloon. "I  _ get _ it, okay? I  _ know _ , I fucked up, I know none of this makes sense and I'm  _ sorry _ . I'm  _ really _ sorry, alright? I just…"

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and oh, her mouth must taste like rust, like decay, maybe even like ink. Mine does. Mine tastes like a cemetery, like failure, like ruin. Like death. My proud sister is standing small, with her head bowed and her arms crossed over her chest and her shoulders hunched, and she looks younger than I can ever remember her being. She looks like I feel. She looks like a failure. 

It doesn't feel as good as I wish it did.

"You just?" I say, a sigh at most, a shudder at best. It's pathetic. I'm pathetic. I'm pathetic, and tired, and sad, and the red is seeping into my pants and god, do I wish the crimson could dye the jacket black so I would have something to wear to my wake. 

"I just want my brother back," she whispers, squeezing her arms around herself tighter and dipping her head lower, and oh, she's the picture of despair.

It's actually kind of...funny.

It's so funny. I chuckle, low and soft and slow, and it's like a languid stretch, the way it rushes down my spine. _I just want my brother back._ I lift my arms above my head, hear a crack somewhere down my back. Elena flinches. The faucets keep dripping. My lungs are caving. They're still standing. Not for long. _I just want this to end_.

We're pathetic.

"Why don't you ever learn from your mistakes?" I breathe, and it's mournful, hand scrubbing down my face as I stare up at Elena, drained and sick and tired of this. 

"I try—" she argues, she  _ whispers _ , and I scoff. 

"How about when you thought I was dating 'P'—"

"That was different." She's trying so hard, voice raising the slightest bit in an attempt to fight back, but the spark in her eyes is not there and a flare could never hold to a gun.

"Was it?" I shoot back, placid and stone-cold, a half smile twisting my mouth into a pleasant nightmare. 

Silence. Ah, what a lovely greeting.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Elena?" I ask, half beg, and it's not as much as an insult as it should be because she could never fight back against cold logic like this. "First P, now this. What do you care if someone's gay or not? Why does it  _ matter _ ? Wasn't that homphobic, anyway?"

"I—"  _ I don't wanna hear, I don't wanna hear, I don't wanna hear. _

"Besides, I thought you were good with secrets! But holy shit, you literally can't keep anything to yourself!" Am I rambling? I think I might be rambling. This made sense somewhere in the corner of my mind, but now it's out and it's static. “And you wanna know the real kicker?”

She doesn't look like she'll say yes. She doesn't have the right to say no.

I didn't, either. 

"I had your back," I say, voice cracking, because I meant it. Because it's true. Because—fuck—it  _ hurts _ . "Yeah, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when I was hiding behind the curtain, and I heard you talking to yourself. And when I told you I heard everything, I was cool about it. I said, 'Who cares?' and you hugged me. And you said to me, 'Good brother.' And I didn't tell anyb—"

"You told Schneider!" she exclaims, words bursting out of her mouth like she couldn't hold them back, and her eyes widen, hands slapping over her gaping mouth as she realizes what she said.

My heart beats a staccato rhythm, the base to a song, and it goes of disbelief, pain,  _ let me out. _

"Okay, sure, but that was an accident! I was a dumb kid! You knew  _ exactly _ what you were doing when you ran to Syd all, 'Guess what, Syd? My brother's  _ un maricón! _ Let's stalk him and his boyfriend!' And Schneider didn't tell anyone, did he?"

Elena's hands tremble around her mouth and she squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head once, twice, nice and slow, like it'll make me understand. Like there's anything  _ to _ understand. Like we aren't unsightly, disgusting beings unfortunately called humans, monsters wearing people's skins, people's names, like all that blood has a meaning, has a reason. Like any of this is supposed to make sense at all. 

The air smells of fabric softener and detergent but all I can smell is rust. Iron. Taste bile. Dust. Decay. Calcium. Does calcium have a taste? Probably.

I wonder what it is. 

Elena’s rise from her mouth like she’s got weights hanging from each finger, dangling from chains; it seems like a fine comparison, because those hands of hers are what have landed her, have landed  _ me _ , in this disaster. They settle somewhere between her eyes and her forehead, nails digging into her hairline vindictively and heels sinking into her eyeballs like she intends to gouge them out. She looks faint, ill. Pale, frail; she looks like she might collapse at any moment, the sound of her body hitting the ground the only testimony. I feel that way, too. 

Finally, Elena sniffs, releases a quiet breath that seems to carry with it the very essence of terror. "Alex," she croaks, downright pathetic. And I almost want to yell at her for saying my name, want to stand up and turn around and leave this place and never look back. I don't want to be here anymore, I don't want to see her anymore,  _ I don’t want any of this anymore _ . "Alex, i just want to be close to you. You're  _ so  _ closed off"—her hands fly up, forming a plea, forming a million explanations I can’t, don’t want to understand—"and you never say more than two words to me! I just… I want to be close again! I just want you back, that’s all!"

She means it. She means every single word, because she’s begging, and Elena only begs dying women and a God she doesn’t really believe in. This is a different sort of plea, a different sort of prayer, because I’m no god but the devil’s on my shoulder, and now, he’s sinking its teeth in and he’s never going to let me go. Not after this. Not after tonight. Not after the fear, the shame, the pain, all these wonderful little things he feeds on like cats devour mice. I am prey, tonight and every night to come, and I am doomed to sit on steps like some decadent concubine, waiting to be ravished and drained of the flowers growing in my lungs, my chest, my spine, ridden with thorns and dripping with so much blood.

But for now, Elena is begging and I am not listening, because concubines aren’t kings, and they do not respond to the beggar’s plea. 

My jaw is set, and the anger isn’t gone, not quite, but I can feel it slowly die, like everything inside. I can’t say a thing to appease her, and she can’t say a thing to get me to forgive her. What was it this was called? Ah, right— _ impasse _ . 

"If I choose not to share some personal details about my life, that's  _ my _ business," I say, keeping my voice low, keeping it serene. Deep breaths aren’t enough, and second seconds are too much, so I just sit down at the crossroads and watch the dust rise up, watch ruin trod down to meet me with all the beauty of a turd. "I don't have to tell you everything, okay? I need my privacy, and I damn well deserve it, too."

"Alex, I get that, I swear I do, but—"

"Do you?  _ Do you _ ?" My voice is somewhere between aghast and sardonic, hand rubbing at my temple incessantly. My fingertips are losing feeling around the jacket. "You just stole my jacket and phone from under me in the middle of the night, Elena, that isn't exactly convincing."

"Would you let me finish talking?" She half demands, half pleads, and I resign myself to raising an eyebrow and slumping back against the washing machine. It's cold. I wish it was colder.

I wave a hand aimlessly, sigh wearily. "You have the floor."

"I get that we all need privacy, but—but there's a difference between keeping some things private, and alienating your entire family, okay? I'm worried. I'm so worried I can't sleep, Alex, because you don't look like yourself and you never want to talk and I don't know how to help you!" The words burst out of her like a tsunami, fervor and panic making it all blend into one big mess of perfectly comprehensible nonsense. I understand every single word, feel every drop of desperation burn my skin like acid. But it doesn't  _ fit _ . "You  _ never _ tell me anything,  _ ever _ —not a thing! Why can't you give me  _ something _ , Alex? I just wanna help you but I can't—I can't fix a problem if I don't know what it is, I can't solve it without the formula and I just— _ please _ , Alex. Please, just  _ tell me something _ !"

The words hang in the air for a moment, the sound of Elena's panting and chronic sniffling the only thing disturbing the quiet. There is no peace. There is no palace of serenity. This is hell, and I am sitting on the steps of a throne, and everything is chaos. I can hear the wailing of the lost, the begging of the losing, the resignation of the damned. It's excruciating. The devil sits and whispers,  _ hey, wouldn't that be nice? _

The hummingbird in my lungs whispers,  _ I don't know, but I wanna try.  _

"You want me to tell you something?" It's quiet, curious. Not half as careful as it should be.

It sounds panicked,  _ pleading _ to my own ears. 

Elena's head shoots up, desperation making her gaze wild. "Yeah! Tell me something!"

The thing thrashing in my ribcage is beyond deafening now. I'm suddenly hyper aware of every nerve ending in my body, all the ones screaming in pain through my synapses, all the ones slumbering without a care—and yet, I'm numb. Like I've been injected with morphine after having an arm amputated, because the anesthesiologist is a sick bastard and I was only too willing to play lab rat. My lungs scream, thorns breaking through the wall of muscle, flowers weaving themselves through my chest cavity like string. My kidneys begin to fail. My heart ticks, boom-boom.

It explodes.

“Alright, I'll give you your something.”

And then I do.

There’s a part of me that knows this is it, that the perfect Latino  _ hijo _ dream will be shattered if the clock dares tick another second away. All the pain, the anxiety, the crippling fear that threatened to fill my lungs and drown me, the part within me that didn’t stop myself from wearing the letterman jacket to sleep, every single second of every single day that I’ve suffered since the jacket’s discovery begin to bubble up, rise to the surface, eating me alive completely and entirely. Something within me that was hiding in the deepest burrows of my heart, something that I never wanted to face or whose existence I never wanted to know about claws its way out of my ribcage. This is it. This is the second shoe, this is a million feet drop, this is the end of my life, and I can hear the knife slash, the blood splash, the clock tick.

Four seconds pass.

Seven seconds will never come.

Eight seconds were a pipe dream.

I have no control, no power, no authority over what comes out. Because this is it. This is the end of the line.

And dead men tell no tales.

“I don’t want to tell you about absolutely everything that goes on in my life, okay? I want to be alone. Hell, I even  _ like _ being alone now, which is something I never thought I’d say, but here we fucking are!” My voice is loud and it commands attention, coaxes others to listen and  _ understand _ , as if I’m giving the homily at Sunday Mass. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the possibility that more people are listening to me enters my mind, but I don’t quite hear it. I don't hear anything. Nothing but words upon words upon words of destruction and death and a fondness for pain. “I don’t wanna share every single detail because the details are  _ gross.” _ The word ‘gross’ escapes my mouth like it’s profanity, like it's a drop of acid in a sea of sin. “They’re gross, and they’re wrong, and they’re weird, and they’re not supposed to  _ exist— _ ”

“What do you mean, Alex? What’s happening?” Elena has a look on her face like I just grew a second arm. She’s covering her mouth with her hand, and she's squeezing her arm with the other, and she's hurting and—

And I'm in agony. 

“What I  _ mean, _ ” I shout as the tears begin to well up in my eyes, “is that I am not who you think I am! Okay? I’m supposed to get decent grades, and talk to girls effortlessly, and have a great smile and charm anyone I meet, and make Abuelita proud of me just by breathing, and I’m supposed to give Mami grandkids with my wife when I grow up, and I’m supposed to be able to  _ objectify _ girls on command whenever Papi or one of my tíos points at a cute girl and asks me to. And I’ve been all these things for so long, I was  _ almost there, _ but then I find this motherfucking  _ jacket _ and it fucks everything up! I can’t be all those things I’m supposed to be, I can’t be everything that you all  _ want _ me to be and expect me to be! I think I might be something else, and it  _ scares me!  _ I’m scared, Elena! This is fucking scary!” Tears stream down my face now, but I have half a mind to wipe them away, rough and frantic and—it doesn't hurt. 

“I don’t know what to do now, because all of a sudden I keep having  _ thoughts _ and  _ dreams _ and now I can’t stop thinking about why I kept the jacket and what it means, and then I catch myself staring at—at—at someone like a fucking  _ creep _ for way too long in the library and I just want it to stop! I want this to  _ end _ ! I’m this fucking close to going to bed in the street. I don’t want my life to be this hard, fuck's sake, and I don't think I can take it anymore if that's how it's gonna be.

“So  _ excuse me,  _ Elena, if I needed some time alone to myself recently. Excuse me if I freaked out when I found Josh's fucking jacket in my closet after four years. Excuse me if I just wanted to be  _ alone  _ so I could figure everything out because… b—because I've been so  _ fucking confused _ lately, and I didn't know what to do when I realized that I actually  _ liked _ how warm a letterman jacket was, and when I realized that I didn't just like Josh when I was twelve, and when I realized that all of this fucking scares me because it all came from nowhere, and I didn't ask for it, and—maybe I like guys too!"

There it is.

There  _ it  _ is _. _

_ There it is. _

_ Maybe I like guys, too. _

Those five words hang in the air like dust, fluttering peacefully, blind to the weight they carry, the pain they'll cause. It's like a sprained ankle, except you can't sprain your ribs, can't sprain your lungs, can't sprain your heart. But I just did. And it's killing me. Breathing with ruined lungs is death. Living with a failing heart is suffering. Speaking with a torn up throat is impossible.

A dead man speaking, a dead man living, a dead man  _ grieving _ . What a joke. 

My legs are jelly when they force me off the ground, autopilot going off with a blare in my head, and I'm violently scrubbing at my eye, trying to ruin that, too, when I see them. It's a ghastly image, because poltergeists aren't supposed to be here, but this is an impossible night full of impossible things—everything is possible. And so there they are, staring in horror, in terror, in disgust. 

We're unsightly, tainted creatures, and the audience isn't laughing, isn't clapping. The show is over. 

Mami, Abuelita, Schneider, and Avery are standing at the doorway, terror etched into every crevice and wrinkle on their faces. The audience has been listening intently, taking notes, making good of the spectacle. The audience sat and watched a disaster occur without a word, listening to a great declaration of despair.

Listening to my worst nightmare come alive.

I say nothing to them, barely look any of them in the eye as I walk past them on my way out of the apartment building.

My footsteps are quiet clicks against the floor.

_ Tick, tick, tick. _

The bomb has gone off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> [Follow me on Twitter! :D](https://twitter.com/dxntcallmyname)


	16. The Letterman Jacket VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex deals with the aftermath of his confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ## READERS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA:
> 
> ### Season 4 of ODAAT is airing on CBS (the USA) and Global (Canada) on Monday nights, at 9:00 PM - 10:00 PM eastern time!!! Assuming this was posted before 9:00 PM ET, FINISH THIS QUICKLY SO YOU CAN WATCH AT 9:00 PM! If this was posted after 9:00 ET, you better have watched ODAAT. The show needs saving once again. It's the ratings on CBS and Global that will determine whether or not Season 5 is happening. So instead of asking the actors on social media "when will there be new episodes," **_TUNE INTO THE OLD ONES SO WE CAN GET NEW ONES!!!!_**
> 
> **  
> _YOU. DO. NOT. NEED. CABLE. TO. WATCH. CBS._  
>  **
> 
> * * *
> 
> WE'RE NOT DEAD
> 
> Yes it's almost been a month. We're so sorry. Honestly, we don't really have anything new to say for ourselves.  
> One of our readers, Sandman123, commented asking us if we were okay, and that was the first time it hit me like, "Oh, people are actually worried." I guess the biggest reason why they decided to comment was because I had deleted my writing Twitter account, @alejandroaotd, so honestly it was pretty safe to assume that something was wrong. We really appreciate your concern, but we're doing perfectly fine!!
> 
> The reason why I deleted my Twitter was because I never use it. I do have another Twitter, though, that I'm significantly more active on: [@dxntcallmyname](https://twitter.com/dxntcallmyname). Yes, my handle is from the Lady Gaga song "Alejandro" because my name is Alejandro. Anyways, I will try my best to update you guys with posting news/delays/anything like that on Twitter, and I'll also tweet about when we update, because I'm sure a Tweet is more reliable than an email from AO3 (for those of you who are subscribed, which, again, thank you!!)
> 
> You can also feel free to Tweet or DM me comments, questions, or messages about TAWFFH! I'd be happy to answer.
> 
> We couldn't hope for a better audience. So many of you commented such lovely things on the last chapter, and I'm still so happy because of it. Thank you so so so so so much for your support and continued love, even throughout our spotty update schedule; it really does mean the world. <3
> 
> So, without further ado, here's the long-awaited Chapter 16 of TÁWFFH, and the conclusion to the Letterman Jacket Saga. It's significantly less angsty than the previous chapter, so you guys can breathe a bit. Enjoy!
> 
> -Alejandro

**_The Letterman Jacket VI: Alex Alvarez_ **

The cold outside the apartment lobby bites at my cheeks like it wants to do away with my skin, unrepentant and unrelenting, and I could blame the burning in my eyes on the freezing aches sinking into my bones, but the numbing of my toes isn’t half as painful as the thing thrashing in my chest. 

Maybe it’s the sight of the pavement, drab and unassuming, that gets me. Maybe it’s the desolate streets, the fact that the bright lights fail to hide the fact that right now, it’s a ghost town. Maybe it’s the fist of solitude that grips my heart, bleeding red and black in streaks that dye ashen knuckles dark, that bruise ribs black and blue with the force of the fall every time they drip down. Either way, I know it is something about the whisper of the icy breeze, about the bland image you wouldn’t see in any film and the gloom you could only find in one of Elena’s fancy books that makes my lungs shrivel and die in my chest with the sound climbing up my throat. The ice crawls up my bones like cracks as soon as my soles touch the rough ground, and the sound making its home in my vocal chords gets a name. It’s a sob, pathetic and small and so harsh it makes my chest ache, coughs itching up my throat, but I can’t stop the next one, or the one after that, or any of the ones that follow afterwards. Distantly, I think I want to leave, want to walk away now without a single glance backwards, want to run away from this place and never even consider a return. Presently, I think I just want to scream, and the fact that I can’t is the most painful thing of all.

There’s a howl sitting at the base of my throat, begging to be let out and fighting tooth and nail when it’s denied, and keeping it chained in place is a war held in a hall of tender flesh with a shrine of wishes and lies keeping watch.

I scrub hands down my face and stumble over the bumps in the sidewalk, breaths coming heavy and fast between the salt sliding out of my eyes and into my mouth. There’s no one to see me, not a soul in sight, not a single person to mock or judge, but there are always eyes on me one way or the other, even when I can’t see them, can’t so much as feel them, and all I can think is  _ God, please, stop looking at me _ .  _ Please just leave me alone.  _ I don't want anyone to come up to me and ask what's wrong, or look at me weird for being a grown ass teenage boy sobbing. I don't want questions, don't want comfort, don't want concern and don't want eyes on me. I just want a sea to drown in, and smokey walls to hide behind, and an excuse bad and big enough that everyone will stay away from me. I just want the world to let me be.  _ Please, please just let me be. _

I want to sink like a stone and drown in the deafening silence of solitude, in the lack of other human beings. Their company burns me. Their questions scathe me. Their innocence baffles me. They make me want to scream.

Because their love hurts, and I don't want to hurt anymore. Not like this.

Being alone used to appall me, the closest thing to terror and panic I'd known other than in faded, sepia memories, but now? Alone has never seemed more appealing. The silence satiates the craving, the  _ need  _ to not talk to anyone right now, to forget what words are and what any of them mean. It calms me slowly, like stormy waves easing into a gentle push and pull, even if nausea still turns my stomach into a carousel and a migraine still beats my skull black and blue. Adrenaline is prominent in my veins, chemicals reacting to stardust and iron and oxygen, and I'm honestly still not entirely certain that I'm completely, totally awake right now. It's just so  _ surreal _ . It's not real. It  _ can't _ be. But since my life has turned into a fucking telenovela overnight and I didn't even get the motherfucking script, I can hear a voice say,  _ oh, but it is. _

There's an axe hacking away at the back of my skull, trying to make planks out of my bones, and it hurts every time, a pounding so strong it makes my teeth rattle. But it's the enormous ball in my stomach, gleefully threatening to make me hurl all the food I've ever consumed, that truly makes my crossed nerve-ends tangle into an unrecognizable mess of red and blue and rotten black. It's eating away at me from the inside, this nausea, this uncertainty, but even so—I can't feel it. I can't touch it. I can't dissect it, because it's  _ there _ , it's  _ right _ there, but it's just out of reach, my fingertips perpetually brushing against its underside, finding no purchase. It's like feeling the sun while underwater, holding your breath in the deep end of the pool. I can  _ feel _ it, I can  _ see _ it, but I can't  _ reach _ it. It's elusive and coy and it seems to smile and laugh at my suffering. I want it to end. I want to relish in the muffling of my senses, in my inability to feel the stab wounds, instead only aware of the pain of bleeding out, but...

_ God _ , shut the fuck up. I just got outed.

Outed. Goodness fucking gracious, what my life has come to.

_ Maybe I like guys too. _ I don't think I'll ever forget the way those words sounded coming out of my mouth, distorted and heavy and dripping with misery, with ruin. I don't think I'll ever forget how they tasted. Acrid. Vinegar and acid and blood and shit. Every time I think about them, every time I breathe in the scent of panic and despair, my head pounds harder, my eyesight blurs further.

It's ruin, alright.

I walk and walk and walk, streets desolate and night bereft, and I might as well be the last man on earth, so long as I don't have to convince anyone else. It's cold, like a cheap movie or one of Syd's YA books, and I don't think much before putting the letterman jacket on—it's already ruined my life one mocking thought at a time; what more harm can it do? Hell, it's not like it's a secret anymore. Might as well use it so I don't freeze to death—even if death seems like a lovelier fate than ever seeing my family again. For a variety of reasons.

I want to drift away. Dust in the air. How'd it go?  _ For dust you are, and to dust you shall return… _ ? Yeah, I should be that lucky. The closest to dust I'll get is doom, and I don't like it, don't want it, even though I crave it. I need it. It'd be so, so easy to give in to it—

My fingers sink into my pocket and wrap around my phone, sleek and cool to the touch and everything I don't want and everything I don't need and everything I shouldn't want to need. And I hold onto it. And I hold onto it.

And it's an anchor, and I'm a sailor lost at sea, in the eye of the storm, letting the hail fall, watching the waves ebb and flow. This is it.

This is it.

It'll never be it.

Somewhere between the 146th crack on the sidewalk, my twentieth time turning my phone over in my pocket, and the thought that its a lovely night for a goodbye, a lovely night for a last "fuck you all," the local park comes into view.

There's oak trees and a dingy swing set and a seesaw that has most definitely seen better days and enough benches to make up a courthouse. The ground is traced and divided by little dirt roads for people to walk or run along, littered with small stones and thin, coarse earth. I exhale through my nose, a strangely painful act, like snorting milk during a fit of poorly timed laughter, and there they are, faithful as ever; four, seven, eight seconds that rule my life far more steadily than anyone or anything else ever had. Gazing at my feet, which trod across one of the fancy little paths noisily, is better than looking up and starting to doubt or—worse—think. I only stop when a bench comes into sight, cold and harsh and hardly inviting, but the best thing I've seen all night.

Los Angeles is the only city I've ever known. Everything in my life has been a routine, a system I can't run away from; nor do I  _ want _ to, I think. It's been so  _ normal _ . Achingly, blissfully, boringly so. Everything just was, and we just were. The whole stupid business with Papi was the closest thing to momentous in my life; but even the clusterfuck of screaming, and panic, and  _ cervezas _ eventually became normal. The trainwreck he left behind became normal. The scars became normal. Everything, no matter how painful, became normal. It's sad, and maybe even a little pathetic, but it's  _ true _ . I hate that it's true.

Normalcy. Ha. I used to dislike it, used to try and snuff it out, find things to distort it. Everything that challenged it was taken in with open arms, maybe even encouraged. God, how I want it now. I want it back so, so much. I want it desperately, like an asthmatic wants air and a smoker wants nicotine. These last few weeks have been anything but normal, and I don't want it. I don't want this type of irregularity, where the very idea of normal is broken down to nothing, instead of blurred by booze and weed. This isn't recklessness, isn't bad decisions, isn't me staying up too late and regretting it the next morning. This is a disaster and I don't fucking want it. I don't want to have to wade around questioning my sexuality like I'm in a swamp, trying to suppress an attraction to a boy or forcing one to a girl. I'm tired of trying to tell myself that the barista's dimples aren't cute or that his sunny skin, his freckles, aren't adorable. I don't want to convince myself that the neighbor's legs are heavenly and that her red lipstick is hot. Not that they're not, they most definitely are, but—I don't want to touch them, and I don't want to kiss her. But just because I don't want to kiss the neighbor doesn't mean I didn't think about kissing the pretty redhead last year. I still want to, actually.

Don't get me wrong; girls are beautiful. I've never doubted that, not once, and I won't start now. The past few weeks haven't been so much of a  _ why aren't girls pretty? _ as much as they've been, why _ are boys so attractive?  _ Because they are. I can't begin to explain how attractive they are. But so are girls. Damn, so are girls.

Maybe that's why I'm alive at all. Maybe that's what kept me sane, even if just a little; maybe the only reason I'm still standing instead of drowning myself in the shower is because I've been holding on onto the fact that “girls are hot” for dear life, without everything I have, until my fingers peel. It's a statement I could never deny. It's a  _ fact _ . It's a refuge, it's a place of solace.

It's terrifying because it's not the only fact I've got to hold onto, even if it's the only one I want.

_ Four-seven-eight. Four-seven-eight. _ They're not facts anymore. They're words, and they're worthless words, too, and the more I repeat them, the more I try to turn them into my reality, the less it works. The more I try to calm down, the more I want to cry. I want to pull at my hair, and maybe scream a little. Screaming sounds very good right now, now that I think about it. But I can't possibly do that, can I? All I can do is sit here, on this cold park bench, without a single soul in sight, sometime around 4:00 AM.

I still want to cry.

And even though I'm alone, even though there isn't anyone here to judge, I still don't want to. I don't want to think about what just happened. I don't want to think about any of it, about anything at all.

I don't want to accept that it happened at all.

Can't we just—I don't know, start over? Turn back time? Toggle off the “queer” switch in whatever system menu was responsible for creating me? What the hell, God?

For a spectacular moment of stupidity and delusion, I think God is about to answer me when I hear a voice say, “Hola, Papito,” out of the fucking blue, making me jump  _ como un cotejo. _

But I know that accent, know those increasingly stilted footsteps and the note of kindness and love in every word.

I sniff. “Hi, Abuelita.”

She’s frowning, something fond but sad in her eyes, and when I force myself to take a closer look at her face, I think I can see she’s been crying, too. Something in my chest shrivels up and dies, knocking into my entire digestive system on the way down and thumping against the bottom of my stomach like autumn leaves carved of solid gold, because Abuelita doesn't cry. She hates it, more than anyone I know; more than me, even. And unlike with Elena, where the first thing I wanted to do was yell at her for not having the right to cry, for always making a mess of things and then sobbing about it later, all I want to do is hug Abuelita and say  _ I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry for everything. I'm more sorry than I could ever begin to explain. _

But I don't.

I scoot over so she can sit down next to me, feeling the scrape of the old polished wood against my flannel. Normally, whenever I sit with Abuelita somewhere, it's on the couch, in between her and Dr. B, to indulge her desire to maintain a respectable distance between herself and him, or in the pews at church on the days I attend Mass with her. She manages to drag me along more often than I'd like to admit, because Lord knows I can't deny Abuelita jackshit.

She sits down with all the grace of a dancer and all the stiffness of an old lady with bad knees, and the kiss she places on my forehead is  _ it _ .  _ This _ is it. This is what I'd wanted, what I'd needed, what I'd given up on. A single brush of lingering, unconditional warmth, and just like that, it's like someone pulled my head out of the ocean I've been drowning in, holding it above the rolling waves. I'm not saved, I'm not safe, but I can  _ breathe _ . That's good enough for me.

Forehead kisses, I decide, are criminally underrated, especially the ones given by my Abuelita. Their power is unparalleled.

Tender hands, weathered by age and hard work but softened by religious care and prayer alone, cradle my head and coax it to rest against her shoulder, like I'm still 12 and shorter than her. My neck hurts at the awkward angle, because I've been too tall for this for forever and a half, but I don't care about how impractical it is, staggering height difference and all. In fact, I find it just a little comforting. Like this, tucked into her shoulder like a kid, boneless and tired, I can pretend, for the shortest of seconds, that I'm a little boy again and that everything is normal and okay. I can delude myself into being younger, before I grew up and learned about how hard my life would be from here on out. I can close my eyes and smell cafe cubano and Fabuloso and just  _ breathe _ .

If only everything could just be okay again.

I don't think things will ever be that okay ever again.

"Ay, mi papito," I hear her whisper, like what she's seeing breaks her heart, and she puts her warm hands on my freezing face, easing my gaze up to her face. My entire mouth quivers beyond the thin line I've forced it into with my teeth. The tears fall from my eyes, cold and painful, and God, this is pathetic. I hate people seeing me cry. There very well might not be anything I hate more. Except maybe my hair being ruined. Or having no WiFi.

No, crying still takes the cake.

I open my mouth to say  _ something _ — _ anything _ . I try to say, "Abuelita," try to redeem myself, but all that comes out is a choked sob, a small sound trapped in the horrors of my throat like a dying thing.

And I keep crying, and crying, and crying like the pathetic queer baby I am until I'm able to murmur "Perdóname" over and over. It's worthless, so worthless, and so stupid, too, because my words could never begin to fix the mess I've made, to heal the wounds I've carved out anew, but I try. I try, and try, and try, because trying is all I have left, and if I give that up, I have nothing.

The thought is terrifying, and yet I'm not scared at all.

"Papito," she finally says, that same fondness, that same softness, that same  _ warmth _ . "Mírame."

I look up at her, vision blurry from the tears, and it hurts, eyes burning and cheeks crusting, but she deserves me to listen.

"This changes  _ nothing!" _ she declares, so confident and so  _ honest _ , everything I used to be and nothing I can find in myself now. Abuelita squeezes my face between her hands. "You are okay. It is okay. I don't care if you marry a nice Cuban girl, or a nice Cuban boy."

"Really?" The hope is crippling. Is devastating. It's too much, so much, and it  _ hurts _ . Damn, it hurts. 

_ "Por supuesto. _ All that matters is that you are happy,  _ mi niño." _

The hearth found in her eyes, her voice, and the comfort of her embrace is all the more ruinous, but even though my chest aches, it's a good ache. My lungs burn, and that's not good at all, because bleeding lungs are never good, but a heart bathed in sweet, gentle flames is a good thing. A respirator. An aid. An anchor. A lifeboat.

I cry some more, and it's easy to forget I'm not supposed to. But it's not because of what happened.

It's entirely possible I'm hallucinating, or that I didn't hear her quite right, or that I did actually bang my head against a washing machine until I bled and I'm currently having a near death experience somewhere between a laundry room, a dingy hallway and a hospital, but somehow I feel like the respirator is working magic on my lungs. A donor was just found for a transplant, and I've said yes, and soon, I might even start dreaming about breathing on my own. This, warm and kind, is it.

This is the beginning of it, anyway. My head is sticking out of the water, and I'm being pulled out of the ocean, little by little, but even though I'm not saved, I've been  _ rescued. _

* * *

To say my head feels like someone got more than a couple right hooks in during a fight would be a major understatement, dramatic though it may sound, but having Abuelita here, holding my hand in withered but strong fingers helps settle the feeling of dread. Makes it more tolerable. Kind of, anyway.

But, oh so fucking predictably, the slithering weight of dread roars with laughter as soon as I set one foot inside the apartment, a shiver running up my spine at the acute feeling of ice carving out my esophagus. I barely get to take a breath, shaky and completely useless, before a sobbing ball of frizzy hair and oversized jumper pounces on me, arms thrown around me with impressive desperation as a wet, hot face smashes against the crook of my neck. It's Elena, I realize belatedly, shaking like a leaf and fisting her hands in the back of the letterman jacket like I'll throw her off otherwise, like I'll walk out the door and never come back. I might. I certainly want to.

Elena's not even wearing her glasses, always a terrible sign, and she looks like even  _ more _ of a mess than usual, clothes ruffled and sleeves darkened with spots of moisture that always show up when she starts wiping at her tears and biting at her clothes, trying to ground herself on all the harsh sensations. Her hair is falling out of her ponytail and sticking out in about twenty directions, and from this angle I can see her cheeks are bright red, like they always get when she cries too hard and for too long. And she's mumbling apologies, pleading with me like she never pleads with anyone, whispering "I'm sorry" over and over again like if she said it enough times I would believe her. Like if she hugged me for long enough I would forgive her.

The headache blossoms further with a renewed fervor, the colorful spots dancing over my eyes and the pulsing of my temples eliciting a groan of pain that I most definitely do not enjoy. Elena must have thought she was hurting me with how tightly she was hugging me, though, because she loosened her grip the slightest bit, hesitant and wary. I attempt to wiggle out of her arms, feeling distinctly like a fly in a spiderweb.

“It’s fine, whatever,” I mumble, shifting in her grasp again. It really, really wasn’t, of course, wasn't remotely fine in any fucking dimension or version of the universe, but I have absolutely no energy to deal with her right now. Or anything. Falling asleep and never waking up sounds like heaven canned up. “Can we please just talk about this in the morning?”

“It  _ is _ the morning,” Elena argues with a nervous smile, shoving her phone in my face, lockscreen clock on display. “It’s four  _ AM _ !”

I roll my eyes as my palm flies up to my forehead, digging into my pounding skull in a futile attempt to soothe it. “Elena,  _ please? _ I just want some alone time.” I don’t want to be here anymore, and the pitiful crack in my voice shows it better than my words ever could. Her eyes widen, big, red-rimmed doe eyes shiny with tears and panic, and it’s almost enough to make me stay, almost enough to listen and just let her have her way. But I can’t. I can’t comfort myself, much less her; right now, I’m no good to anyone. I’m a grenade that’s already gone off, and this is the fallout. She’s got everything to lose here, and I don’t have the heart to let her dig her grave deeper. Not right now.

So I shove her away as lightly as I can manage, trying to be careful, to be gentle—but I’m pretty sure it still comes off as too harsh, because Elena flinches lightly, an arm flying to wrap around her own torso in a half-hug I’ve seen her do when she feels she’s falling apart. It hurts, the muted way she nods, the way she keeps her head bowed and her eyes down, frizzy strands of hair falling into her eyes. She looks small and vulnerable, in a way Elena never does, and it makes my head swim with regret and my chest tighten with pain. But a part of me, silent except for when I’m bleeding, whispers that she deserves it. That she lovingly, oh so carefully made her own bed, and now it’s only fair that she gets to lay on it. So what if the roses and the lillies and the orchids she laid down have thorns, have sharp stems and bees at the wait?  _ She  _ selected them, picked them out and arranged them, the same way she did my downfall. Every drop of blood she sheds upon soft, colored petals is on  _ her _ . Every tear she sheds is on her. Every ounce of panic, of pain, of regret and insecurity. Every damn second where she can’t breathe is her fault.

I have nothing to feel guilty about. Seeing her like this shouldn’t hurt me. It’s  _ her  _ fault. I  _ deserve _ to be a little harsh right now, damn it, and I sure as hell don’t deserve to be guilted into forgiveness an hour after the fucking fact.

_ Then why don’t you hate her at all? _ Another voice asks, deceptively sweet and so innocent I can see the wicked teeth behind the soft red lips.

I don’t linger on that.

“I’m gonna go help Abuelita get into bed, okay?” I say, weary and faint, abruptly feeling like the weight of the world has settled somewhere between my spine and my lungs. I want to run away, and hide, deep underground where no one can ever find me; I’ve never been so grateful that Abuelita’s room is so close to the living room.

Once Abuelita’s safely tucked in bed and she’s given me one final goodnight kiss on the forehead, looking at me so softly as she smiles, I emerge from the curtains without pulling them back—everyone knows it’s illegal to pull them back unless you’re my abuelita—and start pulling through the knots in my hair with my fingers. There’s too many of them to count, and it hurts, scalp burning and fingers pulling too hard, not hard enough—it hurts,  _ God _ , does it hurt, but it isn’t nearly enough. I could pull at it with all five fingers, try to tear every single strand out one at a time, and it wouldn’t even begin to be enough. And I don’t know what to do about the despair that drowns me, that consumes me, when I pull and pull and pull and feel nothing is enough at all.

Breathing is useless, is void. Pacing is soundless, is null.

The smell of Cuban coffee seven minutes after I walk into the kitchen is a start, and it might be real after all.

It’s four in the morning, and I should not be drinking things that scald my tongue and burn my throat, but I also should be perfectly capable of breathing properly and not drowning a scream in a tight jaw and an empty mouth every time. The shoulds and shouldn’ts blur every now and again, and I can’t bring myself to care. My sister has doomed me. The night is so long, too long, and I could just sleep, sleep until this is over and I don’t even remember my name, but I can’t even close my eyes, even though my body feels heavier than iron. I dump sugar into the coffee, twirl the spoon in and barely notice the clash of metal against metal as I silently marvel, with no short amount of wonder—I’ve just been outed. I’ve just been outed. _ I’ve just been outed. _

Ah.

I’m not sure if Mami is saying anything about me making coffee. Maybe she is. Maybe she’s been telling me to stop for the last five minutes, and maybe she’s standing right there with a frown and raised eyebrows and hands on her hips. Maybe I’m disappointing her. Maybe I already have. Those are a lot of maybes, and I can’t even bring myself to be daunted by them. I’m a little deaf right now. A little blind. A little numb. A little dead, too, because live humans can breathe just fine, and live people do not have hearts that beat in their small intestine.

All that exists in the world right now are the inanimate objects that exist within this kitchen, and myself, and my thoughts. I’d be happy living here if it weren’t for the company of my inner monologue. In fact, I wouldn’t be happy living here at all, because that would still be too much of me to bear.

The minutes tick by, measured solely by the minute drooping of my eyelids and the persistent pounding of my temples; my blood, pulsing and rushing, makes for a good clock when it reverberates across my entire body, a silent earthquake, a shy natural disaster. My surroundings are a blur, my brain able to focus only on words that never quite manage to form thoughts, and it is only when I have a thermos full of Cuban coffee cradled between my palms, boiling hot and soothing to the touch, that I blink and realize that I am breathing, and I am alive, and there is no escape. It isn’t as devastating a thought as I had expected, but there’s no relief, no peace. Only weariness, and sighs, and burning pink hands rubbing at my face until I might cry. I am breathing just fine, and I am alive, and there is no satisfaction in any of those facts. So I scoop up my coffee, real and bitter and painful and perfect, and I take it with me up to the fire escape.

The window creaks something awful when I shove it open, and the breeze hits my cheeks just as it did before, cold and smelling of asphalt and the clean, sharp scent of moisture in the air. It’s like standing in a lifeboat isolated from the rest of the world, standing here where the railing is cold where it brushes against my waist and the sounds of the city are so clear. I can hear cars, can hear laughter, can hear people walking, can hear so many things I can’t even qualify them. An AC dripping, a cat hissing, a fight, someone having the time of their life, someone wanting to end it all. Right now, there are millions of people standing on their own little lifeboat, with their own little vial of perfect poison, in their own cloaks of shame, and as I breathe in the cold, let it settle in my lungs to try and put out the flames blackening my chest, I think that it doesn’t feel like solidarity, like comfort, but like a loneliness so strong it’s crippling. The world is consumed by pain and desolation and I can find no consolation in that.

Funny.

I sit down, half an instinct and half a need, and it doesn’t even occur to me to ponder upon the possibilities of hauling in a chair until my ass is going numb on the harsh iron floor. I discard the thought as soon as it crosses my mind, decide instead to let my body cross my legs. The thermos lays cradled between my thighs, the radiating heat burning through my seats, scorching into my skin. My hands settle on metal, and I lean my weight on them, nice and easy, casual as the steam floating up into the air lazily. It’s strangely scenic, this, with all the distant lights and the present darkness, and I don’t want to leave any more than I want to stay. It’s a weird thought, but I discard it even easier than the last, instead letting caffeine and sugar boil its way down my throat. The coffee scalds my tongue, but I take another mouthful, too much to swallow at once, and let it linger, let it burn, let it cool down in the cavern of my mouth before I let it go down.

It’s painful, and I think it’s the closest thing to awake I’ve felt in a long time.

I should breathe. I was breathing before. Am I breathing now? I mean, I could be. Or maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know. _ I don’t know. _

I’m on a lifeboat. I am alone. I’m cold. I am on fire. I am alone.

I’m not quite sure where in the ocean I am, but I know I want to stay and I want to run away.

This is the last thing I would’ve wanted to ever happen, I think. I guess? I don’t know. It seems likely, seems reasonable, seems like something I’d say. Or similar enough, anyway. Maybe I’d also think,  _ well, or at least it’s up there _ . Or something like that. I’m not sure. I do know I’d been going insane over how horrible it would be if it ever  _ did _ happen, weaving tales and stories of my own suffering and trying to carve them into my skin like stick and pokes, like some sick part of me was trying to prepare the rest of me what it deemed an inevitability. It’s kind of funny, looking back at it now, but everything seems a little funny right now, as I shift the coffee around my tongue, playing with the fire burning the irregularities my teeth dug into my lips, my cheeks. Right here and right now, here it is; the inevitable conclusion with an unknown script, written by a bleeding heart with a sadistic mind, and it all seems very dull all of a sudden, like a rollercoaster coming to a very sudden stop after the most exciting trip of your life. That doesn’t seem very fair. It isn’t, probably, but then I shouldn’t be half as amused as I am, but I am. I am. I know that for sure. But there’s something terribly ironic about this spectacular shitshow, something I could never even begin to explain, and I left the anger behind in the kitchen, with the dirty coffee pot and the spoon sticky with residues of sugar, and in its place the hurt went poof, and as such, fright got spooked and ran, and desolation was the only one that always, always stayed. Always.

What else was there to feel when your worst nightmares came knocking at your door, coming to life where you can’t leave them behind?

I don’t know. I think this is probably not it. I think this is the best I can manage. I think this is the best I can do.

I think it isn’t enough, and abruptly, I think this really, really fucking sucks.

I mean, of course it does. My life is a mess, and my sister is the orchestrator, and everything is sliding through my hands like grains of rice, but like, it  _ really  _ sucks. It’s a little baffling, almost aweing, to realize how much it sucks. And it’s ridiculous, too, because I’d known all along, had known from the moment I first saw Elena holding the phone, but somehow, now that it feels like less, it sucks more. Sucks way more. And why? I’d thought, what, I’d get a warning? A note from Elena telling me she was about to possibly permanently ruin my life,  _ sorry about that, here’s ten bucks for reparations!  _ Yeah, no.

I know that life doesn’t warn you about things like that. It doesn’t warn you about shit, really, because that’s just how it is. Or maybe it does, maybe it warns you in the only way it knows how, and you’re human, painfully human, devastatingly human, and you don’t see it. You don’t know how. It’s a tragedy, a miracle, and you don’t see it. You never do. Not when it counts. Not when you should. All you get is a voice saying, _oh, yeah, should have seen that coming_ long after the gunshot rang and you’re bleeding out in some corner where no one can hear you, and no one can save you. All you get is one last laugh at your own stupidity, one last scream at your own eternally inadequacy and boom, you’re done. It’s over. Better luck next time.

Severe weather, earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear attacks—now,  _ those  _ are the sort of things you do get to know about, every now and again, because the Earth is smarter than you ever will be, and it makes you listen, because it loves you despite you not loving it back. Which is—something, I suppose. I guess, in the end, I’d just pictured that the Earth would shake beneath my feet and cities would crumble to dust in the wind and God would descend from the heavens to reap the few saved souls of the Earth while letting everyone else perish in vain. I can only imagine I’d expected my sister’s mistake to be a cosmical tragedy, a ripple felt through all of the galaxy, a supernova that created the biggest black hole of all. I suppose that at that moment, curled up on the laundry room floor, terrified and knocked off-kilter—I was convinced a magnitude-20 earthquake was about to sink California into the ocean. It was the only option that made any  _ sense _ . It was the only thought I could accept.

But now I’m on the fire escape, letting coffee burn my tongue like others let sugar melt on theirs, and looking over Echo Park, Los Angeles, and there are no signs of the catastrophe I’d envisioned, the one I’d dreamed up in the same way I dreamed up a better time. This is no tragedy. It’s no galactic accident.

It’s just my life in shambles, and the world passing it by.

It’s funny; for anyone else, this was probably just another night. This was just another day, another hour, another moment. Most are asleep right now, probably, because sleep doesn’t elude them like it does me. Some people might even be having a great night, like the laughing girl I heard a while back. Maybe someone tonight ate their favorite meal, or kissed someone they love, or just got lucky for the first time, or got engaged, or found a fantastic new song that rocked them to their core, or beat a really hard level in a videogame that they’ve been trying to pass for months now. Someone in the world is marking this day as an amazing, mind-blowing day—an unforgettable day, because they’ll make sure it stays so. A day written in the stars. A day where all the loneliness in the world couldn’t tear them apart. A day where the world itself seemed much better overall.

To me, this date is going down in history as...probably the worst day of my life. Definitely the most miserable part of my life. It has a nice ring to it, rusted black and dripping a dreadful red. Like a chipped crown. Like the ruins of some empire, long since burnt down.

I toast to that, to some distant, dying star, and I can’t help but feel a whisper of  _ what comes next? _

Valid question. What  _ does  _ come next? What the fuck comes after this? Do I have to start… _ dating _ guys now?  _ Oh shit,  _ Elena’s going to ask me to put a label on myself now. Which—yeah, no, pass. I don’t know what the fuck I am. Gay, bisexual, pansexual, something else... I don’t even want to think about it, really—though, of course, trying to  _ not _ think about it really hasn’t done me any good. Really, trying not to think at all has failed me about as much as Elena did, and ain’t that a funny thought? No, actually, it isn’t. It really isn’t. Fuck me.

This  _ does  _ suck after all.

Oh my  _ God _ . If I have to start dating guys, then Finn’s sluts are gonna notice  _ and I’ll never fucking hear the end of it. _ My life really will be over then, and I might as well ask Elena to make some flower arrangements since she’s so good at it these days, and maybe she should make the casket, too, dress me up, brush my hair, too—just plan the whole damn thing since she’s so eager. And Papi…

Well.

Papi’s not going to like it. Papi’s really not going to like it, like at all—

Going bottoms-up with my coffee is like chugging boiling water, but nothing seems more distracting than possibly giving yourself first-degree burns in your throat, and it’s a worthy trade. The thermos slips back between my thighs with a dull metallic clang, woefully empty and the heat quickly fading away, leaving me so cold and so numb that I'm tempted to go back for more. I  _ want  _ more, because then I have more distractions and more burning palms and I can make a ruin out of my temple. But no. I'm stopped by the sharp sound of someone climbing in beside me; I missed the footsteps, missed the door, likely missed the whole wide world. My mother looks simple and ruffled in her old pajamas, and her frizzy hair, and I can’t muster up anger or annoyance anymore than I can find answers to any of my questions. I have no words, have no protests, have only oxygen and some tales, so I sigh and scoot and make room for her.

She sits down, heavy like the world has found Atlas in her, and she doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t tell me stories of her own. There’s no apologies and no big declarations, no breathtaking proclamations. This is not a matriarch and her son, but a mother and her child. Her baby. It’s stupid and embarassing but it’s true and just for tonight, I indulge. She wraps me up like I’m vulnerable and small, like I might break if she squeezes me too tight, and maybe I am, and maybe I will, but she doesn’t squeeze at all, and so I never get to find out. She just holds, like one might hold all the riches in the world, and I can see the tears on her face from here, clear in the dim lights, and she rests her head against mine and weeps as quietly as she can. She’s my mom, and I’m her son, and I’m quite possibly breaking, and so she’s come to hold me and pick me back up. And it’s this, for some reason, that makes me want to cry again, to let her do what she has come here to do—something I don't need. Something I want, something I want to need, and something I can’t let myself want, can’t let myself need.

The headache comes back, and with it, the clock, and I think she might talk, think she might soothe one need with the other and  _ ask _ . But she doesn’t. She keeps me in her arms, and peppers my hair in kisses, and smiles like she wants to squeeze me the way she did when I was a little kid. But I can’t take that, and she knows it better than I do, better than I ever could, so she doesn’t, and we sit and listen to the world pass us by. The sun rises over the city, and the lifeboat is no lifeboat at all, but maybe a rock, and it is only when the world has gone from a pretty terracotta blur to a blinding golden that we abandon the burning cities, the burning skies, in favor of our respective bedrooms.

* * *

The bed was too cozy, too warm. Much too soft. Way too secure,  _ safe _ . I never wanted rise from the gentle cocoon of blankets and let the cold back in, never wanted to let people see that I’d fallen asleep with the letterman jacket on yet again, never wanted to go into the kitchen—where my family had, predictably, been waiting for me like dutiful soldiers, all solemn faces and nervous smiles, like they were hosting an intervention. All so we could talk about last night. It seemed like a bit of a waste, and more than a bit of a hassle, considering Elena, Mami, Abuelita, Schneider,  _ and _ Avery were all sitting around the table. What are we, a prayer circle? I sure as hell hope not, because I don’t feel like joining hands and conversing with the Lord. Sue me.

Syd is here, too, of course, because such is my life—Elena had most likely texted them all the details about everything that happened last night, despite this whole mess literally being created by her nasty habit of  _ sharing information about me with other people without my consent before I’m ready. _ But whatever, man, at this point, Syd might as well know. There’s no point in trying to keep something they had been so intricately involved with from them. It’d be like trying to hold water in your hands without any of it leaking out and frankly, I don’t have the energy for that kind of foolish, otherworldly effort. And they owe me an apology, anyway, for being Elena’s willing and rather enthusiastic accomplice.

Lethargic and with sleep still weighing down my eyes, relaxing the furthest thing from my mind, I plop down on the living room couch and nurse a cup of Cuban coffee that does little to wake me up. I want this couch to swallow me whole like some eldritch horror right now, so I don’t have to face this twisted, damned situation with only a coffee to aid me. No one here looks like they’ve slept more than me, but unlike me, their lives weren’t ruined, so I think I still get some leeway. Or I should, anyway. Should I? I don’t know, it’s way too early for this. Actually, even ten years from now would be too early and we should postpone this. Wait, no, we should just stop it altogether, no postponement. It doesn’t need to happen at all! I need a few consecutive months of sleep, so I can just catch up on that while they go on their merry ways and move on with their lives. Or no—maybe an eternity of sleep. An eternity of sleep would be great. Even half of one would be enough. You can sleep when you’re dead my ass, I want sleep, and I want it  _ now _ . Preferably before my family starts interrogating me on whether or not I like dick. Please.

I peer up at the ceiling with one eye, willing my prayers to be answered. As always, the higher powers grow deaf and blind when you want something from them, and I slump back into the couch. Cowards.

Elena, Syd, Mami, Schneider, and Avery are converging around the kitchen table like some sort of cult, eating breakfast while making decidedly awkward small-talk and glancing at me every two seconds, like I was a time bomb, ticking and ticking, and if they let me out of their sights for any longer than five breaths, I'd go off and take them all down with me. I'm not sure what grates on my nerves the most; the nervous concern or the tender sympathy. Both make my skin frickle with the first stirrings of cataclysmic fury, a hurricane brewing under my skin, and so I keep drinking my coffee, and reminding myself that no storm, no matter how magnificent and satisfying, is worth the sacrifice of my world, shattered though it may be. I reach for the remote on instinct, driven by desperation, because the quiet clicking of the cutlery against the plates and the forced laughter and the muted attempts at exuberance are pathetic, and they're driving me fucking insane, and I need someone to drown it out. Something to concentrate on, to use as an anchor; something like the TV. I tune into the local news. It’s depressing as all fuck, of course, because it's not only my own little world that's going up on flames every time I inhale—but even so, it’s almost certainly not as bad as what happened last night in the laundry room.

Nothing’s as bad as that anymore, I think. I’m no longer afraid of Hell, and the headlines of burning forests, and a collapsing economy, and a country crumbling in on itself all seem so distant, so dull. It all seems so easy to swallow, now.

Or, rather, I'm just too selfish to care about the plights and grievances of the world when mine are hanging right over my head. My sympathy for the suffering of people I can't reach only reaches a certain level when my own is so tangible, so all consuming, so intense. It's deep enough to drown in and bitter enough to choke on; and it's like velvet, soft and delicate to the touch, and it makes for a fine noose, bruising my neck with a tenderness that steals what little breath I have left away.

I breathe, and try to burn my tongue on the coffee, only to sink into a pool of disappointment as tepid as the black liquid swirling in my mug.

Eventually, Abuelita rises from her chair with lively attempts at conversation and dances into the kitchen, resurfacing with a plate piled with enough food to feed Mami and her, holding it like an offering and a threat as she approaches me. Her smile is sweet as ever, fond and so warm, but her eyes are hard, and I know without even thinking about it twice that she will hold me down to this couch and force-feed me if she has to.

"Papito, aqui esta tu desayuno," she says softly, eyes crinkling further with the expansion of her smile. There's no escaping the honey of those words and the glow of that face.

So I nod dutifully, and give her a bland smile, and allow her to place the plate in my hands, and I say  _ gracias, _ and I bite into the sausage steaming on my plate very slowly. I chew even more sluggishly, because the soft meat feels like clay in my mouth. It tastes good. Warm. Like home. I swallow like there's a mouthful of sand on my tongue, slow and slow and slower still. It drags down my throat like jagged little stones, and my stomach twists before it even gets there. I wash it down with coffee on reflex alone, ignoring how it's gone from lukewarm to cold, because I don't care. It tastes like shit like this, but I don't care, and I don't care, and I want to care, and I really can't, so I don't, and I just drink and quietly realize I might hate it all.

Everyone’s eyes are still on me like I’m a particularly fascinating specimen that happens to be a cross between a spider and a unicorn. I chew my sausage like the good boy I want to be, and tell myself I am smiling, and distantly think I want to fill a water gun with the coffee still smoking in the pot and shoot them all.

I want to burn it all to the ground and dance around the ashes, and know that somewhere in there, there's scorched bones and charred flesh, and it's my own.

Syd and Elena exchange a  _ look _ , the kind of look that speaks as efficiently as words ever could, the look I've come to envy and hate with every single cell of my body—and my heart drops into a puddle of acid and churning sausage. Gently and brutally, like every end of the world out there, I feel the silence and peace slowly disintegrate into dust and be carried away by the wind as the two of them scurry over to the sofa to sit on either side of me. They sit on the very edge of the cushions, maybe ready to jump up and stop me from leaving, or maybe desperately eager to run away and change their names and never look back—either way, I'm not sure they'd get far, because both of them look like guilty, sleep-deprived, kicked puppies, with the dark circles and the bloodshot eyes and the pale, subdued complexion, and if I saw them walking down the streets of Canada or something, I'd honestly assume they'd murdered someone and were presently running from the law. The thought is an amusing one, as is the one of them getting caught for a crime they didn't even commit. The snort comes to me unbidden, and it slips out with velvet smoothness, and then it's a sigh, and  _ oh _ , I really don't want this at all.

Elena grabs my left hand, lightning quick in the way she only ever is when she's tentative and scared, and she  _ squeezes _ , hard and for all she's worth. I don't squeeze back. Her hands are soft and warm, and mine are not, and I can't escape, so I might as well stall, stall, stall until they go down. I knock back the rest of my coffee in two tasteless, thick gulps of chilling death, and then I press the mug down on the coffee table carefully, a wry smile teasing my mouth as I think that I handle a chipped bit of porcelain more thoughtfully than Elena handles me. I wave the thought away with a sigh, fold my arms across my chest and lean back against the couch, resolute in my conviction to stare at the ceiling. Elena squirms, opens her mouth with a light inhale and the beginning of a word that dies somewhere in the bottom of her throat, and I know from the shuffling of her clothes and the twitching of her fingers, stubborn around mine, that she's trying to catch my eye, but I've no interest in giving her any of my time. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

I just want to sleep.

“I don’t want to talk right now, Elena. I’m just—I'm just really,  _ really _ tired.”

The fact that I said those words aloud barely registers by the time they leave my mouth, sickly sweet and an ounce too hoarse for comfort. I swallow and clear my throat and convince myself my voice did not crack at all.

“If not now, when?” Elena asks me, small and desperate, pleading.

I shrug, a movement filled with nothing but apathy and fatigue. “Maybe never.”

“Not an option.” Elena scoots even closer to me, and she's trembling when she wraps herself around me, burying her head into the crook of my arms. Her face is hot, and her glasses are digging into my elbows, and suddenly, every place of contact is a nerve being fried to death and I want to scream. It's too much, and it's too little, and I want it  _ gone.  _ Touch seems a very lethal thing inside this old skin. “I’m so,  _ so _ sorry, Alex.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I really am! I can't even begin to explain how sorry I am, and how wrong what I did was, and I just—I'm  _ sorry _ ," she whispers, and everything is spoken into my skin and her breath trembles and  _ she _ trembles.

And it's nothing at all.

“I just don’t get how you could do that," I respond, and it's flat, and it's also distinctly  _ not _ .

Elena looks up at me with startling abruptness, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose with the sharpness of the movement, reminiscent of how they’d looked in the laundry room last night. It almost makes me flinch, but it’s her eyes, wide and glassy and teetering on the edge of fear and panic that get me to wince. She sounds small and reluctant when she speaks, like she isn’t too certain whether she wants to know the answer at all. “What...what do you mean?”

I look down at her, chin touching my chest with the fervor of my skepticism. It’s hard not to glare, the instinct sitting at the forefront of my mind with infuriating lethargy, and I narrow my eyes to quell it, raising a hard brow. Elena winces as though struck between the ribs, and I sigh, head tipping sideways and eyes falling shut. This is so stupid. So useless. What’s the point of talking about our feelings and admitting our faults and mistakes when we won’t change a damn thing? We’ve been here before, though not this way, never this way—and here we are again. So what’s the point of this? That’s right—there’s none. At least, none that benefits me or actually accomplishes anything other than easing the concern of others and letting them simmer in the self-satisfaction of a “job well done”. It makes me want to hurl.

It’s not fair of me, really, to think of it this way, to reduce their feelings to something I can dismiss as easily as I do their concern, but it’s hardly fair for me to do this simply because it’ll make them feel better. Lately, there’s not a damn thing I’ve done that I’ve wanted to do outside that stupid library, and it’s so ridiculous, and so frustrating. Why is it that the only place where I can say  _ fuck this _ and do what I want is also the only place where I never speak my mind, where I mince my words, where I worry about how they’ll land, about the glare they’ll earn me? It’s stupid. It’s so fucking stupid. I’m so fucking tired of this, and I don’t know how to explain that the exhaustion clinging to my bones and dragging me under the veil of awareness is not one I can soothe with sleep and rest.

So I sigh, once, twice, thrice, and slowly, like dropping a shield or maybe a justification, I let my arms fall to my sides, let my hands curl up on my lap. I take a breath.

And I talk, fingers squirming together, brows furrowing as I attempt to put things into words.

“Last night, something I’d been wanting to avoid for a...long,  _ long  _ time happened. You just came in and knocked down everything I’d tried to—keep together, I guess. And it fucking sucks, Elena, so I don’t wanna think about it.” I chuckle through my sentences, but I’m not amused and I’m not happy, and it just sounds hollow and dull. I’m shrugging again, an instinctual thing, and this time, it carries with it a certain kind of reluctance instead of an indifference. “I just—I don’t want my life to be this  _ hard _ , okay?”

Did my voice crack? I think it did. Why wouldn’t it, really, when all I want to do is jump to my feet and run away, fast enough that they won’t be able to catch me, brutally enough that they won’t be able to stop me? I don’t want this to be my life. I don’t want to doubt everything, and resent everyone, and be scared of living and tired just by breathing. I don’t want this, and I never asked for any of it, and it’s fucking  _ shitty _ .

Elena’s arms, which had slowly slid down until the grip she had on me could barely be called a hug anymore, shoot right up and squeeze around me tighter than before, an insistent and thoroughly unwanted weight, an overwhelming pressure. Distantly, I wonder whether it’s the contact or the person that I find intolerable.

I think maybe, it’s both, is feeling human at all, being reminded I am not alone, that kills me.

“Alex, I can’t tell you that being queer is easy. It’s not. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the hardest things I’ll ever have to do, and sometimes it gets so, so tiring and so  _ hard _ ,” Elena says, and I feel a jolt go through me as I recognize in her voice the same exhaustion that weighs me down, the same helplessness that makes me want to cry. “I’m not sure I would have chosen it, if I’d actually gotten a choice, but see, the thing is—you  _ don’t _ . It’s just a part of you, you know? And even if it gets hard, and I really want to ask God what the  _ fuck  _ She was thinking, I can’t avoid it, Alex. Or  _ hide  _ from it, or  _ deny  _ it, or  _ fight  _ it—I just  _ can’t  _ and neither can you. It’s as much a part of you as your name is, and it may fuck you over just as much, but it’s  _ yours  _ and listening to what the world has to say about it? Would be a load of bull.”

Her voice is hard and unwavering, eyes steel beyond the film of tears, and right now, in this moment, I can’t deny a word she’s said. She’s made mistakes, too many to count and more than I think I should have to forgive, and she’s fucked up so majorly I can’t find it in my heart to just wave this away, but she didn’t say a single lie, didn’t sugarcoat a single word. There’s strength under the porcelain of Elena’s skin, like steel beams under the puddin of our walls, and it’s tangible now, as she looks at me with her trademark resolute scowl, with fogged up glasses and a downturn to her mouth, and with fire in her gaze, because she won’t let me look her in the eye and tell her she’s wrong.

Because she isn’t. And I don’t know anything at all, not right now, and not for a while, but I know that much.

Elena blinks back tears, clears her throat with a weak, small grin. She looks hopeful, eyes wide and a little soft, and it stings a little to watch her face fall by small increments, both excruciating and sweet. She looks away, and she does not look back. It doesn’t seem like cowardice anymore than the slackening of her arms around me feels like surrender, but it does feel like defeat, and somehow, that tastes far more bitter than last night’s coffee on my teeth.

I want her to look back.

And I know how to get her to, as well. I’m not her brother for nothing, even if I haven’t actually hung out with her in months. It’s easy enough to nudge my elbow between her ribs once, twice, thrice, watching as the winces turn to squirming turn to growling, and then I jam it in harder and she squeaks and looks up, eyes aflame with rage and mouth already open around a no doubt vociferous complaint—

I’m smiling, and she’s gaping, anger leaking out of her.

A light hum rolls off my tongue, and I retract my elbow and settle it on my thigh, lean my head on my palm and wave my hand, allowing her to go on.

She  _ beams _ .

“Being queer is...really fucking weird, and it’s probably going to be pretty uncomfortable for a while,” Elena admits with a chuckle that brims with remembrance, joining her fingertips and watching her fingers fight each other with a drop of nostalgia. “When I came out, I felt lost and scared. Like I was the family freak, or the embarrassment. The failure.

“But we have an amazing family, Alex,” she says, with absolute, painful certainty, certainty I wish I knew, I wish I felt. It’s there in her eyes, in the pleading and the warmth, and in her smile, and its hesitance and its simplicity. It’s there in all of her, and it’s there in the hand she places on my shoulder, heavy and warm and hard when it squeezes. My skin crawls. I don’t know if I crave or hate the warmth, but I know I want it gone and need it right where it is. 

“You’re not  _ alone _ , Alex, and you’ve  _ got  _ people, okay? You have us,  _ all  _ of us. Mami, Abuelita, Schneider, Avery, Max, Syd, and I all love you,  _ so  _ much.” The sincerity dripping from her voice falls second only to the desperation coating her words, and she’s squeezing my shoulder so hard, forcing me to listen so gently, I almost fail to notice that she didn’t mention our elusive father. “And we just want you to be happy. We don’t give a crap who you’re happy with so long are you  _ are _ , Alex, and fuck, who gives a damn what the world thinks? We don’t  _ care _ ! We don’t want you to feel like the family freak.”

She stops talking just for a moment, and maybe the glimmer in her eyes are tears, fogging up her glasses again, or maybe she’s just waiting for Mami to scold her for cursing. She doesn't, and Elena gulps, and blinks repeatedly, and maybe they were tears—or is that just the reflection of the lights in her glasses? Maybe both? Maybe neither. I don’t know at all. “I’d do anything to keep you from going through the inner battle that I went through.”

Ah—there it is. It’s been a while since I saw that look, since I heard that voice, but it’s here, staring me in the face without an ounce of hesitation or restraint, as though it’d never left. The haunted whisper in dark eyes gazes right through me, too entangled in dripping bathrooms that stood like blood-stained battlefronts, and at empty picture frames replacing corpses and coffins. Elena had waged a war as general, nation, soldier and adversary, and she’d come out on top, but even so, the horrors of war left her gaunt and the hollow look in her eye returned every now and again, as though she could still hear her father walking away, still see the lack of messages in her phone, still feel the deafening silence when they called for Papi on that dance floor and he didn’t show.

I consider reaching out, consider shrugging the shoulder under her bruising grip, consider a hundred million ways to ground her back to reality, to anchor the ship wandering aimlessly into a storm. I don’t follow through on a single one, and she blinks back to life on her own, replacing Papi’s absence with my face and her skipped meals and late nights with the shambles of my life. It works, I guess, if only because maybe the now is stronger than the then, and so she closes her eyes briefly, pained and with a smile like sorrow, and when she opens them again they’re clear, and dry, and just the slightest bit filled with lament.

I open my mouth, and I don’t know what it is that I’m going to say, but I do know it’s nothing anyone needs to hear, nothing I need to use as a shield, and then there are arms around me, harsh as a punch and soothing as a balm, and I want them off, and I want them  _ here _ .

“You don’t have to be scared, Alex,” she whispers, and she sounds as choked as I feel. “We’re here for you, okay? I only want to help you. I only want to make sure you’re okay, and I’ll do whatever you ask me to. I’m sorry for prying. I’m so, so sorry.”

If there was a single pair of eyes aimed anywhere but me before, now there’s definitely not a single gaze not pinned on me. I squirm, and try to tell myself that _ I’m fine, I’m okay, this is fine, _ and that my eyes are not burning, and I don’t want to cry at all.

Elena needs to stop talking. Now. I can’t lie forever, not to myself, and I don’t want to admit it’s a lie at all.

“I’m really sorry too, Alex,” Syd says, rushed and small, and I try to turn around to look at them, but Elena’s grip on me is so tight my spine is ram-rod straight and my ribs are crushed by the attempt to move. I mumble something, most likely a demand for some freedom lest I die, and the grip eases with an exclamation from Elena as I shift my gaze to Syd. “I support Elena in pretty much everything, as you know, which...maybe isn’t the best thing ever, since one day she’ll probably crawl her way to hell to pick some bones with Freud, but...I do it. Even if I’m kind of a sucker for secrets. And gossip. Sorry, Elena,” they say with a weak chuckle, trying for the humor they always use, and looking down at their lap when it inevitably falls flat, picking at loose threads in their trousers. “But even if all that’s true, we should’ve drawn the line when we invaded your personal space and we should’ve never done all this crap. I’m really sorry.”

Silence. Here, in no man’s land, in a small raft where no one holds the reins, only I have a say on where we go next. Only I decide if we head into the rapid currents waiting to drown us, or if we head back home having learned nothing, or if we brave through the storm beating down on us and find softer, gentler waves ahead of the lightning. Only I get to choose what we do, and where we go, and if this is all, and I know what I want, and I don’t want to acknowledge what I need.

But I want to get this over with, and I don’t want to come back to this trial ages from now, on a different raft and with the same companions.

So I close my eyes. I inhale, and tell myself it’s okay, and remind myself of everything Elena said. Of everything I want to say. I open my eyes.

I exhale.

Two pairs of eyes stare at me, eager and miserably hopeful, and I decide I can already see the light through the storm clouds. “It’s okay,” I breathe, the words tasting somewhat like vinegar on my tongue, even if there's sugar sticking to my molars. “It’s fine.”

Delight and relief blooms across to face faster than any storm can lift, and Elena sags against me like I was holding her very life in my hands, a heart waiting to be crushed on my twitching palm. Syd grins at me, so grateful and so regretful, and I fistbump them, indulging for now, just this once. Elena repeats the words okay, okay at least twenty times under her breath, running her hands through her hair and trying to steady her breathing as her chest shudders like a dying hare. It takes time; time I don’t want to give, and time I patiently let pass us by as I chew a sausage that tastes much less like sand.

“Is there—um, is there anything you want to tell us?” Elena finally asks me, words breathless and tight with how dry her throat must be.

I don’t think.

“Yeah, I guess,” I respond, though I don’t have the faintest idea why. I just want this to end,  _ have  _ wanted this to end before it began. Why extend it? Why prolong my suffering? “I just—guys, I want my privacy. I  _ need _ my privacy. What you guys did was  _ insane _ . I mean, seriously. That’s sort of… beyond obsession. It’s creepy and weird, okay? I guess sort of get why you did it, or whatever, but...” I sigh again, shuddering as the memories of last night kiss the back of my neck like one of death’s maidens. “But I’m still embarrassed as hell. I just don’t want things to— _ change _ , or anything.”

Well, maybe I do. Maybe I do want things to change. Maybe I want everything to change, because I want the world itself to go back to the way it used to be. I miss my confident self. I miss having people around me, knowing I have friends to fall back on, having someone clapping me on the bacck and making me laugh within seconds of stepping through the school gate, miss the stupid, pitiful comfort of having friends and acquaintances, even if they’re shitty and make me inordinately angry. I want to know this for sure, and not doubt every single thought that goes through my head, and have certainty drip out of me when I speak, and confidence ooze through my every pore like I’m a sieve.

I want all these simple, pathetic little things, and I know to have even one of them would mean no more library, no more Angel, no more music, no more anything, and that should be a worthy price to pay, but it’s not, and yet I still  _ want. _

I look over at the adults staring at me like eagles perched on a tree branch, eager and patient and pensive. “Can you guys  _ please  _ not treat me any differently?”

Mami puts down a mug I know she hasn’t actually touched since I came out, and rises from the table to join us, settling between Syd and I with ease.

Abruptly, and without an ounce of doubt, I regret my question even though I needed to hear the answer.

“Of course, Papito,” she says, soft and warm and certain like she was last night, and her arm around me is unrelenting, and when she squeezes it’s harsh, but so gentle. “Papito, if there’s anything we’ve done to make you think we would love you any less for loving a boy, I am  _ so sorry.” _ Mami presses her lips to my temple, and this is a warmth I  _ know  _ I crave. “Nothing could make me love you any less,  _ mijo. _ ”

I don’t dare make a sound, don’t dare open my mouth, don’t dare breathe when the stinging of my eyes graduates to a violent burn, and my cheeks grow hot with the wet drops rolling down my face and inevitably piercing through my sweats, making wet little patches of moisture and shame. I don’t want them, and I don’t want this, and  _ I refuse, I refuse, _ I fucking  _ refuse _ .

I won’t give in.

I don’t utter a single peep as Schneider, Avery, and Abuelita rise from the dining table and march our way to join the hug.

Soon, I’m wrapped up in a boiling embrace from everyone. Syd, Elena, Mami, Abuelita, Schneider, and Avery have all dragged me to my feet from the couch so they could hug me, with matching grins of fondness, with peaks of support. I’m surrounded by people who are trying to get their arms or hands to touch mine, and whose heads are resting on each others’ shoulders, and whose grins I can feel on my clothes. It’s reminiscent of how everyone has each other while I don’t, of how I so desperately  _ want  _ and of how I don’t know, but I force those thoughts out of my head, and I surrender. For now.

I wave the white flag, and it comes in the form of a smile, small and painful and real.

“Thanks,” I choke out, my one little noise, my admission of defeat, and maybe it’s not so bad.

Elena pokes me in the chest, nudging my foot with hers and nearly making us all topple to the ground. “Of course. And I promise I’ll give you a lot more space—”

“You had better,” I grumble, and everyone snickers.

“— _ if and when _ you are willing to be a little more open with us about what’s going on up in that big head of yours.”

I roll my eyes and try to blink the tears away with a groan, but all that does is make more fall out and nobody here seems very inclined to release me so I can wipe the mess on my face away. “Yeah. I don’t think you’re in a position to be asking me any favors, Elena.”

That gets a laugh out of everyone, as well as a few raised eyebrows in her direction, as though to remind her that I’m right and she’s dug her own grave. Elena just gives me a look that tells me she won’t be letting go until I accept, and that she absolutely will pile on me like a dog until she gets an agreement out of me.

“I promise.” And I mean it.

Ugh.

Elena grins and squirms in an aborted attempt at her victory dance, whispering cheers under her breath with cheeks that glow red from exertion, and I snort, fonder than I’d like to admit. She’s a mess, and all she does is make trouble for me, but she’s my sister. I love her, unfortunately.

Satisfied with her triumphant display, Elena sighs contentedly and goes back to wrapping her arms around my torso, her chin settling on my shoulder, a cheeky grin on her face. “Thank you,  _ Papito.” _

I almost groan out loud at the use of my nickname, dropping my forehead on top of Elena’s head with a painful  _ thud  _ as she whines in complaint. Abuelita and Mami call me that shit all the time, and Schneider does it when he’s trying to be Latino, but Elena doesn’t and  _ of course _ she’d use it now. Typical. I don’t get paid enough for this, I swear. However, because I am a benevolent being and my kindness is infinite. I opt to just grimace and die a little on the inside for the second time in the last 24 hours instead.

See? I’m not  _ that  _ bad.

The family hug goes on for a little longer, and maybe it’s a little longer than I’d like or maybe it’s a bit shorter than I need, but the silence begins to fill me with doubt again, gentle and smooth, like honey pouring down my throat and sloshing around my organs. Dread, too, is like rocks in my stomach, sailing through the acid and melting into pebbles that stick to all my wounds stubbornly. My heart lurches just a little inside my chest when I think about everything that will have to happen after this, and distantly I think that right now, it’s a patchwork of prayer and hope and despair, and that if I keep going this way, even the wind will be able to knock it down. 

“Everything’s going to be alright, Alex,” Elena whispers into my ear, as if she can hear my thoughts. Her arms tighten around me, and I try my best to believe her. “It really is. We got you.”

Somehow, going to sleep that night with the letterman jacket on finally feels like oxygen peroxide on my wounds instead of another ugly scratch in bloom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! That is the ending of the Letterman Jacket Saga. I suppose that Chapters 11-16 could be read as their own standalone fic. Hmm.
> 
> However, please note we are NOWHERE NEAR the end of this story. There's so much left to say.
> 
> We will try to update as soon as possible, but we might have to break our twice-a-month pattern in order to get the chapter right. We might not update again by the end of October, but we shall do our best. Thank you all, love you!!


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